General Literacy Support - Writers Around Us

The activity suggestions provided are designed to encourage children and students of all ages to be come actively involved in reading, writing and illustrating.

Use these as a starting point to stimulate your own ideas for working with the New Zealand Post Children's Book Awards finalists in the classroom, in the library or at home.

Writers Around Us

General Activities

• Invite a New Zealand author or illustrator to your school or library. Contact either the Regional Co-ordinator for your area or contact the New Zealand Book Council about their Writers in Schools scheme.
• Prepare for the visit: Read aloud at least one of the author's books to the pupils in advance. Think of questions to ask the writer or illustrator. Illustrate scenes from their book to hang on the walls. Plan in advance activities in which the author or illustrator can participate - for example, a communal story or mural.
• Host a "Read Aloud" day and have people from your community reading to groups of pupils.
• Write a local story using imaginary or historical characters set in your immediate environment.
• Interview people in your community and write their story. This could be compiled as an "A Day in the Life of..." series.
• Choose a New Zealand book (fiction or non-fiction) that best reflects the local community or environment. Could the book have been written about your area? What things are the same, or different?
• Find out about authors and illustrators living locally. Check your School Journal catalogue for brief biographies of writers. Research other work by finalist writers.

Early Childhood

• Invite appropriate people from your community to share storytime (eg. a dancer to read a book about dancing).
• Write a communal story about a typical day for your group using the names of all the children involved. Include photographs and illustrations.
• Find examples of distinctively New Zealand things or ideas in books.

Primary and Intermediate

• Collect photographs of New Zealand authors and illustrators for a scrapbook.
• Design a poster to promote the books of your favourite local author (you might even like to send copies to that author).
• On a map of New Zealand flag where various authors live. Are they disproportionately represented in some areas? What is the rural /urban mix?
• Is writing or illustrating always a full-time occupation? Find out about other jobs New Zealand authors and illustrators might have, or have done in the past.

Secondary

• Stage a role-play interview with students acting as journalists and an author - investigate the writing process.
• Collect and catalogue information on New Zealand authors and illustrators, including photographs, lists of their works, reviews and interviews. Gather newspaper clippings during the New Zealand Post Children's Book Festival.
• Choose New Zealand characters from books that students are familiar with and discuss the methods the author uses to show they are New Zealanders. Discuss whether writers write better about things with which they are familiar.