Wriggle Room Writers – Session Two: Character

I did the second session at Burdett-Coutts, a week after Katharine Quarmby launched the six weeks of Wriggle Room Writers workshops with Year 3s.

My theme was character and we kicked off with all the students talking about who their favourite book characters are and why they like them.  Lots of Roald Dahl characters popped up.  No surprise there!

I introduced Eliot Jones, who is the main character in my picture book, Eliot Jones, Midnight Superhero and asked the children to pay attention to the adjectives and actions that I used to create the character and we talked about them after reading Eliot.

The rest of the session was based around the creation of their own superhero character, brainstorming characters and emphasising the fun of using alliteration and rhyme in the names of the characters.  Some of the characters they came up with:

Toffee Softy – a girl with big hair who can capture baddies in her hair
Mr. Blingi Gadget – He has a big necklace with a medallion that opens up with a laser as well as numerous other gadgets
Big Belly Joe:  Joe has a big soft belly and he can bounce around it and get places
Spyro
Mighty Mia
Singing Sophie or Super Singing Sophie whose loud voice could injure her enemies.

The children all started to develop their characters, drawing pictures, and describing them using great adjectives and actions which elaborated their charaters’ powers and characters.  They began write some of their favourite adjectives and similes on cut out shapes to put up on a classroom display.

Taking their cue from Eliot, (a quiet boy with a huge imagination) they will hopefully let their imaginations go wild in the creation of their characters in their writing lesson, which will carry on the character work they started in this session.

I thoroughly enjoyed the ideas and enthusiasm the children brought to our sessions and, like Katharine, I’m really looking forward to reading their stories, creations, and favourite words later in the month!

— Anne Cottringer