Literary Week in classes 5-8

"Literature is one of the most interesting and significant expressions of humanity.”

P. T. Barnum

The Indian School-Second Shift observed Literary Week with an array of activities through the week, from 26 to 30 April 2021. The week is observed each year to ignite and fuel new interest in reading, creative writing etc. All students of classes V to VIII participated in several motivating and inspiring activities to hone their skills. 

It was a week of flurry and excitement, with the children being fruitfully engaged and getting exposure to literature in different ways from the moderns, to the old masters. 

The students of class 5 engaged with international folk tales of Ireland narrated by their teacher. In Hindi, they were encouraged to read folk tales from around the world and to present their research in the form of a collage. They also read stories by writer Sudha Murty and wrote character sketches of their favourite characters.

Furthermore, the children used their witty side to create jingles for imaginary brands and also made videos. In English, they prepared a book cover of a favourite storybook. They also dressed up as characters from their favourite books and shared pictures. The students also attended a storytelling session by a senior student of the School.

Our students of class 5 didn’t miss a chance to learn new vocabulary the fun way, in an online workshop- ‘Vocabulary is Fun’ by Mr Bhaavesh Suryakant. There wss also a fun-filled and engrossing storytelling session by Mr Abhishek George.

Poetry writing is an excellent practice for strengthening one’s writing skills. Through poetry writing, one gains command of the language, cultivates a robust vocabulary, masters literary devices and learns to work with imagery. The reverberation of the Literary Week celebrations could be felt in the number of submissions received from class 6 students for the assigned poetry activity. On A4 sheets students creatively portrayed an image of the poem that came to mind while reading it!

The students also engaged in a conversation with students of a partner school in England for a book reading session. Later in the week, students attended a storytelling session on 28 April 2021. In Hindi, students read a story from the Panchatantra and narrated it using puppets. The students also attended an online debate session by Ms Jayshree Mehta, for classes 6-8 on 29 April 2021.

Idioms are expressions that help describe a situation in a creative way. Keeping this in mind the students of classes 7 and 8 submitted their activities on idioms, and comic strip illustrations. Later, they attended a storytelling session on Mental Health by Ms. Vandana Tewari on 28 April 2021. An engaging creative writing online session by Ms. Upasana Malik was also conducted for the students of classes 7 and 8 on 29 April 2021 which enabled the students to exercise their creative minds and helped build new confidence in them.

An online Hindi storytelling session was followwd by a book cover making activity. In house debate sessions were also held om the topics-'Wars are gratuitous' and 'A step ahead in future is dubious'. 

The prime motive of these interactive sessions and activities is to enhance and develop creative skills and critical thinking amongst students. Overall, the Literary Week brought the students closer to the magic of language and turned out to be an extremely engaging experience of mixing learning with fun for them.

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