Writing+Skills

=Writing Skills =

One of the obvious opportunities is to explore wordless picture books with a view to enhancing students' own writing. We have done this with stimulus pictures for years, but picture books offer a level of continuity which can allow a greater level of engagement with the process. As Abrahamson indicates, working with wordless picture books is a creative way to draw out the student's personal response and imagination, capitalising on individual responses (Abrahamson, 1977, p.5).

Some suggested texts:
 * //The flower man : a wordless picture book// / Mark Ludy
 * //The other side// / Istvan Banyai
 * //Home// / Jeannie Baker.
 * //Zoom// / Istvan Banyai

One of the more enjoyable initiatives I have been engaged in is watching the process of challenging Year 9 to write a picture book, illustrate it, and then "product test" it with students in a nearby primary school. As a librarian in a public library, collaborating with a colleague in a central school, the opportunities to engage in a cross-school activity such as this was too good to refuse. It also meant engaging the art teacher in creating workshops where students learnt to increase their awareness of artistic composition and layout. A great way to get teachers engaging in, and sharing across the curriculum.

Picture books traditionally have no more than 800 words, and most have far fewer. //My Hiroshima// has roughly 81 words, and yet comprehensively conveys, in image and text, the enormity of the experience of being there when the atomic bomb was dropped.