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Has anyone used Story Cat by Julia Jarman?

Last post 14/08/09 at 15:06 by JuliaJarman, 1 reply

Post started by HellsandBells on 24/07/09 at 19:16

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Posted by: HellsandBells 24/07/2009 at 19:16

Joined on 24/07/2009

Posts 40

I'm a Year 3 teacher and have just found my copy of Story Cat : A 'How to Write a Story' Story, by Julia Jarman. I'm wondering how best to put this to use in class. I'm thinking of reading it to my new class at the beginning of September. Now, I don't want the kids to write a story in their first few days back, so have thought about using it for speaking and listening activities in our first half-week in school. It's aimed more at KS1, and so would be a nice starter to the term for new Year 3 children.It would be a good recap of the story writing they have done in Year 2 (also there are a lot of below average children so will do them no harm). I thought I'd use it like this: Read the story a little at a time, stopping for s&l activities before each part of Arthur's story. See if children can make up the next part of the story in pairs. What would they have happen, etc. Then have Arthur's story illustrated on whiteboard for us all to read together. After reading the story, I would then have the children use story prompt cards to work in pairs. They would choose a setting and a character and orally make up the beginning of their own story, then the middle and then the end, over a couple of days. There would be no writing, unless the children choose to. That would then lead us into our first Year 3 unit of stories with familiar settings. Has anyone used this book in a similar way? If not, how did you use it?

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Posted by: JuliaJarman 14/08/2009 at 15:06

Joined on 14/08/2009

Posts 1

I'm an author, in fact the author of Story Cat so I was very pleased to see your post. I'm sorry you haven't had more response. I know several teachers who use Story Cat and say that even when they simply read it to pupils - with lots of expression of course - they see pupils catching on. Ah, that's what suspense is! That's why the character must have a problem. That's why s/he mustn't solve the problem straightaway.

I think your lesson plan is a good one, especially using the whiteboard to display it and - I hope you don't mind - I've put a link to it from my website so other teachers can benefit. It would be good to be able to blank out the story within the story on the screen to make the whole process interactive. Pupils could write their own story, individually or as a class. I don't know if this is possible.

The latest emphasis on doing LOTS of speaking and listening and thinking before writing is good I think. Less can be more when it comes to writing. I do mean less writing. I've heard teachers say it really does result in better writing. There are more writing tips and lesson plans on my website www.juliajarman.com

Happy teaching!

Julia Jarman