Now I don’t want to put you to any stress in working that headline out, and I know it looks like gibberish – but in its own way it makes sense.  And being a kind sort of person, I’m not going to keep you guessing.

What I did was shift my fingers one place to the right on the keyboard as I typed “This is a piece of…” well you can work out the rest.  Same with the last word of the subject line.  Although I may have made some mistakes somewhere.   It got a bit confusing…

So is my headline creative writing?  Well, if a child was writing a story about meeting people with a different language, the piece would have a little more sparkle in it if what these foreigners spoke had some basis to it, rather than just being a collection of random letters.

Which leads to my question: “What is the fastest way to make children more creative, inventive, expressive, and experimental in their writing?”  In short, what makes them better writers?

Turns out that after years of study the answer is… you ask them to be more creative.

Yet there is still a problem here, because there is no universal agreement on what a creative action is.   Is it something not previously done, even if that thing is meaningless, or even harmful? Possibly not.

If I swim a length underwater for the first time (which I am not going to do since it would mess up my computer and make my clothes wet) would that be a creative act?

It’s hard to say.  But I can tell you this.  Telling children that you want them to be creative AND interesting, really is a good place to start.  Because although Yjod od s etc etc is not very interesting of itself, it becomes of interest because it has an underlying logic.

As does the subject line.

Our series of books on creative writing gives children starters for their writing – there is more about the books via this link and you can find samples of the activities by clicking on any of the titles.

And then once they have started, if you want them really to explore their creativity each time you give them another exercise, just ask them to be a little more creative.

Curiously, it works.

You can contact us by phone on 01449 766629 or by email at orders@tradecounter.co.uk.

You can order any of our Creative Writing Resources on our website

Brilliant Publications,
Mendlesham Industrial Estate,
Norwich Road,
Mendlesham,
Suffolk,
IP14 5ND.

website: www.brilliantpublications.co.uk
email: orders@tradecounter.co.uk

phone: 01449 766629
fax: 01449 768047