Creative Choices from Cover to Cover: How Student Agency Drives the Process
Written by Jessica Tran & Brendan Ternus, 100 Story Building
This is an extract from an article published in the Australian Literacy Educators Association Journal. Literacy Learning: the Middle Years Volume 29, Number 2. June 2021
Abstract
Writing, editing, designing and publishing a book is a wonderful achievement for anyone, let alone a group of 10-12 year old students, but it is the process by which they accomplish this goal that is valuable for the development of student creativity and agency. In this article we outline how 100 Story Building’s Early Harvest program delivers a process rich with decision-making, discussion, and negotiation that supports and scaffolds creativity and student agency. We offer teachers a selection of the strategies used in the program to support students making consequential and informed decisions about their writing: we do so within the context of fostering a creativity-supporting classroom environment.
Introduction
The students cross out “Food” first. Next, they eliminate “Heroes”, “Space”, and “Creatures/Wildlife”. After debating whether “Disappearing” and “Lost” can be combined, they move on - doing away with “Beauty (Inside and Out)” and “Future/Tampered History/Time Travel/Historical”. This leaves a final, difficult choice between the remaining options: “Magic/Fantasy” and “Underwater/Oceans”. This is a high-stakes decision, because whichever option these students choose will become the theme for a real, professionally published book. In support of one theme or the other, the students brainstorm story ideas. Gabi: “magic creatures come into the world making it different.” Mali: “a scuba diver goes diving, then drowns, comes back and lives in Atlantis.” And Isla tries to bridge the gap with “two characters discover the secret of magic in a library deep beneath the ocean”.
Eventually, the team is deadlocked. The adult facilitators do not intervene to break the tie: the young people have full ownership of this decision. But a compromise is eventually reached: the team decides to consult every school involved in the project, and leave it to a majority vote.
One week later, the theme for this year’s Early Harvest youth publishing program is finally settled. Throughout 2021, students from across Melbourne will work together to write, edit, design, art-direct and publish a collection of stories all about...“Underwater/Oceans”! This will be the tenth book of its kind, and the students are already eager to begin the process of crafting their submissions.
The process of choosing a theme unfolded in early March 2021, as a group of Year 5/6 students from across Melbourne reckoned with one of the first and most significant choices in a year-long creative journey… Read the full article in the Australian Literacy Educators' Association Journal. In this article, we will share a little bit about this journey, and how we foster a culture of creativity as a foundational requirement for student agency.
This is an extract from an article published in the Australian Literacy Educators Association Journal. Literacy Learning: the Middle Years. Vol 29. Number 2. June 2021.
