Creative writing is more than fun. It is an important life skill.

On 30th June 2016, teachers of The Indian School and The Indian School-Second Shift attended a workshop, Creative Writing among Students conducted by Ms. Jyoti Bisht of Harper Collins. The session began with an ice-breaking activity. The teachers were divided into groups and asked to identify the different parts of speech. As teachers, together categorised lists of words, they realised this activity could easily be used as a fun exercise within the classroom too. Other similar activities were also conducted by her in the course of the session, that could also be shared with the children in class. [gallery link="none" ids="7024,7025"] Thereafter, our guide led a discussion on creative writing. She emphasised how important this skill is for a child to learn, as it stretches the imagination and offers a wonderful outlet for expression. In order to enhance visualisation and vocabulary, which is an important aspect of creative writing, a child should be immersed in a world full of stories so it helps to develop the imagination, to visualise the character and the plot. Various other vocabulary-building activities, such as, locating the synonyms or antonyms of a word, dictionary activities, etc. were also suggested to enhance these skills. She demonstrated various ways to develop the skill of creative writing among students. Dialogue- writing, comic strips, story extension and marathon writing are some interesting techniques to get children to write. Towards the end, Ms. Bisht conducted an exciting activity in which each group was to draw three chits of different colours from a box and spin a story revolving around the person, place and event named in the chits. Working together as a group quickly triggered the imagination and creative expression and each group had an innovative story to tell! The workshop was thought-provoking and showed us various tools and techniques which could easily be integrated within the curriculum so as to develop imagination and expression amongst children.