The Authorship Club
Mentoring and Support Project
The Authorship Club can be inducted into your school to help embed a firm two-way link between home and school. Children are encouraged to write a story in the home environment without reference to the classroom, about anything they want. Children then bring their stories to school and put them in the Treasure Box. The ‘A’ Team then select a number of stories, that will be told by them at an ‘A’ Team Assembly. At the assembly the author is celebrated and honoured as much as the storyteller. Giving both storyteller and author pride and confidence their work encourages them and others to produce more oral and written stories.
The ‘A’ Team is comprised of 6/8 children drawn from each Key Stage in the school, with a new ‘A’ Team chosen every half term.
The Authorship Club; raises children’s attainment in writing, makes the connection between the spoken and written word, promotes the features of authorship in children’s work, celebrates children’s independent writing and self organisation, involving children, their parents, teachers and the whole school and makes storytelling a home/school language habit.
Outcomes for children contributing their stories:
- The joy and freedom of writing stories.
- A great sense of pride and achievement in their ability, when their story is told at the ‘A’ Team Assembly.
- More motivated to write and tell stories.
- Motivation and organisation in the home environment.
- A realisation that writing is universal and not merely school or task based.
- Promoting authorship and valuing every child’s work.
- Forming a secure Home-School link involving staff, children and their families.
Additional Outcomes for ‘A’ Team members:
- Organisational skills: Experience of meetings, organisation through the election of officers, and training through the Authorship To Oracy method.
- Learning how to work as part of a team: Selecting stories, organising ‘A’ Team Assemblies and publicising ‘A’ Team events and achievement.
- The organisation and preparation of a written story for telling.
- Use of the public voice and oratory in the ‘A’ Team assemblies.
- Making the link between the written and spoken word.
- Making use of critical analysis of peers to prepare the story.
- Raising the status of the self-motivated written story by its public telling.
- Displaying the features of authorship through the method of Oracy.
To induct the Authorship Club into your school:
We are now offering a fantastic three day package providing expert guidance and mentoring, including:
- Three Twilight Insets for all staff.
- Immersing the school in oral stories over three days.
- Hosting the first ‘A’ Team meeting and helping the children understand how to develop written stories contributed by other children into oral tales to be told at the ‘A’ Team Assembly.
- Hosting a whole school assembly to launch the Authorship Club in your school. This inspires and encourages children to participate in and contribute their stories to the Authorship Club.
- Hosting and organising the first ‘A’ Team assembly.
- Holding a parents’ meeting encouraging them to be involved in the school’s Authorship Club Project, by telling stories to their children at home.
The Authorship Club has already been embedded in many schools. It has helped to increase in children a love and excitement for writing and telling stories both at school and within the home.