Cracking Creative Writing - David Horner

Cracking Creative Writing contains 100+ tried and tested activities which will inspire Key Stage 2 children to write creatively and be in charge of their own creative writing process.

Each sheet begins with a worked example showing the kind of finished piece being aimed at. Then step-by-step instructions explain what young writers need to do to create their own piece of writing that they can be proud of. The aim throughout is for the writer to be independent and in charge of their own writing, not the other way round.

The activities take between 30 and 60 minutes each to complete and cover a great range of writing-related features and terms as well as some creative routes into the trickier aspects of the National Curriculum grammar requirements.

The ideas here cover a great range of writing-related features and terms as well as some creative routes into those trickier aspects of English grammar and punctuation. Some are straightforward, others more demanding. Rather than using decontextualized exercises, these activities invite young writers to explore the language. The children's own creative writing becomes the context for their playing with, and thus learning about, the language - how it works, its rules, its possibilities - and crucially therefore, what they can do with it. These are not 'free' writing activities; each has its specific challenges, constraints and formal game plan. If a child could benefit from using, say, a dictionary or thesaurus for a particular idea, then they are told this at the outset.

'Writing is the greatest human invention.' - Professor Brian Cox

Writing matters. It matters to teachers, and it certainly matters to children - they want to be able to do it, and be good at it. As teachers, we want children to write successfully and also enjoy the activity itself. Perhaps even find it fun.