Get New Zealand Writing 2019

This year I decided to sign my class up to the Get New Zealand Writing programme run through Warehouse stationery. It was very different to the one we had last year, with students exploring Poetry this year. The theme was "CAN WE FIND A POEM’S WORTH OF STICKY WORDS INSIDE EVERY SINGLE THING?" We had a box containing 13 different objects. 

Students worked in small groups to brainstorm 40 different words around their object. They then narrowed this down to 20 words. Students then either wrote each of these words on to a piece of paper, or use http://note.ly/. Once they had done this they manipulated their words so that they made the most impact. They had to ditch two more words, so that their final poem had 18 words.

The students really enjoyed working on this project. I have embraced some of Murray Gadd's theory's from his workshop I attended this term. Our moto in our writing is that when we write we ensure we are being courteous to our reader, in this case it was for the class at Cambridge Middle School that we were swapping postcards with. I was really impressed with how each student rose the challenge, even those with lower writing ability in my class, and how well they all worked together to complete the shared poster.

The first word of each Poem was an anagram. My class loved the anagrams, once they got the hang of it! To begin with they were not sure of them, but once they cottoned on to them, they were away laughing.  The last word was the object from the box the student had chosen. 

Things I learnt for the Get New Zealand Writing Programme this year: It is a great way of connecting my students with others students. The activities were achievable for all abilities, and my students really enjoyed them. What I did struggle with, was last year it was about connecting students to other classes by showing "what was outside our classroom door" I felt that that was a better way of connecting the different classes to each other. Also the cards we received had amazing poetry and words written, but my students were disappointed with the lack of colouring (None) that their postcards had. They felt "ripped off" that they had taken the time and effort to ensure that their finished product was courteous to their reader and most of them felt that it hadn't been reciprocated. I was able to turn this into a teaching point, that every piece of writing needs to be courteous to the reader so that they feel good when they read it.