Star Wars learning lessons

Learning Lessons

Volume 2 issue 5 October 2009

Author: M Gray

Editor: T Carter

“Developing the capacity to pursue new and interesting ideas with fellow educational practitioners

to have a real impact on the lives and life chances of young people”

Star Wars Extravaganza A collaborative leading edge project

between Melbourne Park Primary

School and King Edward VI Gram-

mar School By Michael Gray, KEGS.

“The process of collaborative innovation is…...a

process governed by professional judge-

ment” (Higham, Hopkins and Matthews, 2009)

Introduction Towards the end of the Autumn Term of 2008, year 4 chil-dren at Melbourne Park Primary and Nursery School took part in an innovative Leading Edge project with King Edward VI School, Chelmsford. The aim of the project was to motivate children by using a more creative approach to the teaching of writing. It would also challenge children to be more adventurous with their vocabulary, and stretch the more able writers. Mrs Debbie Gayler, Deputy Headteacher at Melbourne Park, and Jo Moore, Teacher of English at KEGS, planned collaboratively a unit of work based on writing stories set in imaginary worlds. The original Star Wars trilogy was used as a stimulus for the project. The children turned areas in their classroom into set-ting from the film, and even had a Millennium falcon in their role play area. They created their own characters and set-tings, which they included in movies filmed using video cam-eras lent to them by KEGS. The children then edited their

“The aim of the project was to mo-

tivate children by using a more

creative approach to the teaching of

writing”

footage using the Moviemaker computer program, add-ing music and sound effects as they went. The project culminated in the children writing stories based on the movies they had produced. They then published them on the computer, and the stories have all been included in a class Star Wars book which will be kept in the school library. All the resources and planning produced for the project are now being used throughout the school. Another class, in year 2, worked with a student teacher on a graphical novel approach to the same theme.

Characters created by the children as part of the project

The Research Publication of King Edward VI Grammar School, Chelmsford

Students' reactions

“I liked being able to spend a lot of

time on it.”

“I think it helped me choose my words

more carefully.”

“I learnt how to work in a team.”

“I was really proud of my story – I

wrote more than I'd ever written in my

life.”

“It was all such good fun !”

“Essentially, we were trying to improve

visual literacy, and encourage writing

to ‘imagine, explore and entertain’, as

the National Curriculum has it.

Jo's story

“It’s the Star Wars lady !” the children squeal in delight. The other customers in the corner shop look round expec-tantly, but it’s not Carrie Fisher, only Jo Moore, English teacher and one of the brains behind this unique creative initiative. “This project was hugely enjoyable, very satisfying,” Jo told Learning Les-sons. “The idea was to mo-

tivate children to write, encouraging a more creative ap-proach by giving planning time to allow teachers in the busy primary school environment to develop new materials ap-propriate to their children’s needs. But using ideas we tend to take for granted at KEGS.” “I fed in the ideas, taking a gung-ho approach, safe in the knowledge that someone else [Debbie, mostly] was going to deliver and follow through. I visited for the first time to see Debbie working with the class [ Michael Morpurgo – all the Melbourne Park classes are named after writers ] and look through children’s work, adjusting our expectations and en-couraging self-differentiation as we went. Then there was planning meeting, followed a whole day – luxury ! – making the resources to a really professional standard, so that they could be used over and over again.” “Essentially, we were trying to improve visual literacy, and encourage writing to ‘imagine, explore and entertain’, as the National Curriculum has it. “Understandably, some of the Melbourne park colleagues were a little sceptical, fearful of moving away from the ta-bles, logs and schemes laid down by the DCFS. But by the time the project was complete, we had films, sto-ryboards and an impressive book for the Melbourne Park library and the parents of the writers and actors and film-makers. Some children ended up writing twice as much as they’d ever done before. Some children had never seen their work printed out, and one or two had never really writ-ten anything.” “The other end products included some short animated films, with voice over and a sound track by the music de-

partment, making a role play area, backdrops, character cards [like Top Trumps] and work on the four worlds. The young writers mastered the art of storyboarding, invented

their own baddies, wrote dialogue, with descriptions and camera angles.” “Language skills were enhanced by describing the scenes from the original film, ‘dartboard’ work on synonyms [“sparkling”, “gleaming”], increasing the variety of verbs and adverbs they could use. They used Star Wars comics, too.” “I hope it will be a long-term collaboration between KEGS and Melbourne Park – we’re hoping that there’ll be funding for next year. I thought perhaps more traditional literature could be the springboard this time – Beowulf might appeal to the boys …”

We used a bulls eye diagram to demonstrate practically how to select words to describe precisely the mood and atmosphere of different settings from the Star Wars Tril-ogy. Students were asked to place word cards that did not match the setting outside the rings, and then grade the re-maining word cards towards the centre of the diagram ac-cording to which offered the most relevant and powerful description, justifying their decisions through dia-logue. Once confident with the strategy, students were challenged to come up with a range of their own words to create their own bulls eye diagram – a technique that can be used for all sorts of descriptive writing.

“Some children ended up writing

twice as much as they’d ever done

before. Some children had never

seen their work printed out, and

one or two had never really writ-

ten anything”

Jo Moore

Debbie's Story

“Miss, can Alice in Wonderland end up in Dagobah ?” Six months after the Star Wars project, the year 4 partici-pants are still keen to apply the Force to all their creative writing, Debbie Gayler explained. “If ever they have a choice of topic, they always ask to do Star Wars !” “It was very exciting, the children loved doing it. And it was something different for me as a teacher, too. I felt my enthu-siasm and my motivation were transmitted to the class.” “We were approached by Steve Smith [leading Edge Out-reach Coordinator for KEGS], and we chose literacy as a focus, since that’s an area we had targeted for develop-ment. We decided to work with just one class, and to look at Imaginary Worlds. “In our ‘Golden Time’ – free choice class activities – I’d bring in some of the Star Wars figures I’d had as a child, and so often the children would choose to play with those, talking and listening opportunities that engaged those boys immediately. “I explained to the class that the end product would be an original story, but that the process would involve movie making, and the evaluation would include a presentation to a wider audience, which turned out to include County advis-

ers as well as parents, governors and KEGS. “The Michael Morpurgo class had nine boys and ten girls. At first the girls were a bit reluctant, but we looked at clips from the movies that showed Leia as a really strong female character. The children were working in mixed ability, mixed gender groups, and in one group the conflict between mon-sters and princesses was resolved by creating the character Princess Rose, who becomes evil when exposed to sunlight – a complex storyline, but it worked, and it became one of the better films, with real depth to it. “It was a very cross-curricular project. ICT, of course, with Movie Maker, (we’re going to try and buy movie cameras of our own, now) and DT for making the settings – they loved looking through the supplies catalogue, choosing good quality materials, fun to use, which this funding meant that we could actually afford for once. “But it’s the language work that’s had lasting impact. Use of vocabulary, helped by Jo’s Bull’s-eye system, which has become an integral, instinctive part of our literacy work, speaking, listening and especially writing. Producing the movies made them keen to do the writing: they already had the plot, so they could concentrate on the language. One thing I didn’t envisage was use of speech – I had to teach them speech marks ! “One boy, who hated writing, went home that night and cov-ered three A4 sheets with a whole episode. His mum was amazed – for him to choose to sit down and write, as op-posed to going out and play football … “Another, quite unexpected, outcome, was that four parents approached us to ask how to go about getting their children into the grammar schools. Ambitions and expectations raised by our Star Wars Extravaganza ! “We spent four weeks on it – just before Christmas, which was not the ideal time, really. Ideally it would be five. We were happy to collapse the curriculum so we didn’t lose the momentum the project generated. “We’d love to do it again next year. Maybe with year 6. I have an idea for a non-fiction project, biography-based, in-cluding interview with the subjects, and sculptures of the interviewees !

“One boy, who hated writing, went

home that night and covered three

A4 sheets with a whole episode. His

mum was amazed – for him to choose

to sit down and write, as opposed to

going out and playing football …”

Debbie Gayler

Hayley's Star Wars story Episode IX Wonderland Finally Luke and Leia's journey had ended. As they crept out of the ship, Luke mumbled "What a glamorous place, don't you agree ?" "Yes I do." Lea yawned dozily. As they wondered around the very unusual planet, they spotted a sign saying 'Wonderland'. Then they met a very unusual woman, she said that she was a princess. Then the weird woman repeated "I am a princess and I am called Princess Rose. Who are you?" she asked. "We are Luke and Leia." they told her. Then they strolled

around for a while and then it became bed time. During the night something awful happened. Princess Rose transformed into Evil Canevil. Suddenly Evil Canevil had Leia tied up. Then Evil Canevil cackled, "Luke will never find you now!" Leia screamed, "HELP!!!!!!" Suddenly Luke woke up with a jump, "LEIA! LEIA! Where are you?" Luke shouted. Then the moon started to shine on Evil Canevil, "Oh no, I'm melting!" screamed Evil Canevil, as she transformed back into Princess Rose. Then she apologised for tying up Princess Leia. "Yay, now we can get married!!!" announced Luke and Leia happily. Happily, they married and had a huge party. By the end of it they were full of food from the party. They thought about the time they killed Darth Vader, whilst they danced romantically at the party. The next year they had twins.

The final word

It is hoped that the collaboration between KEGS English Department and Melbourne Park will be a long-standing one. The next stage of the partnership is the joint construction of a literacy unit based on sports-centred biographical and journalistic writing, aiming to involve KEGS students directly in the process. Technologically, the plans will be a new challenge to both teachers involved: from animated movie–making in 2008 to podcasting in 2009!

References Higham, R., Hopkins, D., Matthews P. (2009). System Leadership in Practice. OUP. Smith, R., (1994). Chapter in Teaching and learning in the secondary school. Routledge in association with OUP.

“A good teacher sees creativity

and curiosity as the key to learn-

ing experiences”

(R. Smith, 1994)

Settings created by the children