Collaborative Writing to Screen.

Re-writing "Alice" - the writers' review

 

Re-writing Alice: considering collaborative writing to screen

Introduction

Lesson One - the font issue

Lesson Two - the writing process captured in four video extracts
With transcripts and commentary

Extract One
Extract Two
Extract Three
Extract Four

Re-writing Alice - the pupils' commentary

Teacher and Researcher Reflect

Here is the final version of the story, with illustrations.
The accompanying commentary on all six lessons is based on interviews with Naomi and Kate. Looking at their work they reviewed what they had written in each session. Their review of Lesson One is included in The Font Issue.

Lesson 2

Starts: I ran into a round room.
(See the video extracts from this lesson.)

"We read it through first and thought what would fit in."

"We thought what was going to happen to him because he was just running along a passageway so we thought was he going to come out into the (inaudible) or was he going to…."

"Well the round room like a chessboard is in the film as well so we didn’t want to change too much of it. And the glass golden key…the glass table and stuff. But then actually in the film they go into that… I don’t know where the rabbit goes, he goes into that… We didn’t really like that idea so… "

"(We had Mr Mouse because) we wanted another character in it."

"Yeah, I think because we sort of…because they sort of interact a bit more. Because the first paragraph is just…yeah the first paragraph is just sort of introducing it. Well it isn’t really introducing it…I don’t know…yeah I think the first paragraph’s introducing it and then in the second paragraph the story really starts."

Lesson 3

Starts: I finally emerged from the dark forest
This week they added Chapter divisions to their story. The text now has Chapter 1 and Chapter 3.

"Alice is still chasing after the rabbit…but they don’t see each other all the time but they sort of meet up in places."

"Then we sort of almost forgot it and we just suddenly went ‘Oh yeah. What about Alice?’ and we just had her pop up…"

"I think this week we really did talk about the crossroad thing."

"Cos we imagined the mixture of passageways and we imagined him emerging from the dark forest. And I wasn’t quite sure what happened to him. I wanted him to emerge into a sort of field but Kate wanted him to emerge into an arch of trees."

"Well coming out from the forest I sort of picked a little path with sort of loads of trees. I’m not sure. I didn’t really think of an arch of trees. I just thought of some trees and you (Naomi) thought of ‘arch of trees’."

"Yeah I thought of the arch of trees. She thought of the trees."

"I didn’t think of crossroads, I just thought of path and then… "

"She thought of some paths and I thought of crossroads. "

Lesson 4

They started this week completing the sentence that begins: "Fine!" said the thing.
This week they noticed how they had numbered the chapters and changed Chapter 3 to Chapter 2.

In the writing in this lesson their idea of Frederick Rabbit seeing Alice as ‘The thing’ becomes more central. They had spent some time at the end of Lesson 3 planning what would happen next. Their teacher had reminded them that they should be finishing the story by next lesson.

"Cos’ you said OK well she’s got to do something and then when she gets upstairs she can be mischievous and everything cos she finds the bottle and she drinks this potion."

"Because I think it’s sort of nearing the end of the story."

"And Mrs Kelly said try to finish it by next lesson."

"We thought at the end of the story…so she could go home."

"But we had this idea that Alice didn’t actually go home she was teleported to a different place."

"And then she had some more adventures".

"When she comes back down again I thought the gloves were going to help Alice get back home but they were just for the rabbit to put on."

"We just finished this story."

Lesson 5

In this lesson they made only minor amendments to the text. These were based on two pencilled notes made on the print out between sessions in the computer room.

1. "It must have drank my potion! I knew I should have put it away!
In pencil they have noted that the speech marks are not closed. They have also added a note "or I thought" at the end of this sentence.
In Lesson 5, they add 'I muttered'. They also complete the speech marks and change 'drank' ( a local usage) to the standard 'drunk'.

2. "A few minutes later we arrived, the pool of silver mist was gently twisting round." The note beside this simply says 'change'. They change 'the' to 'a', and add 'in front of us'.

This week they also correct the spelling of 'duchess'. (from 'dutchess')

The story in essence was finished in the previous lesson, prompted by Mrs Kelly’s comments. They start to look for pictures to illustrate the text and have little success.

"We were trying to get pictures but none of them worked."

Lesson 6

Kate was alone this week. Naomi was absent.

Kate spent a lot of time scrolling through Clip Art trying to fulfill the task to focus on presentation. The video shows her frustration.

"Do any of the pictures work on yours? None of them work on my Clip Art." (She means the images she has found do not fit ('work') with her story.)

"Can you show me your rabbit (picture)?
Many children in the class have found a cartoon image of a rabbit and are using it in their stories. Kate tried the cartoon rabbit and then deleted it. She said it didn't fit the story or thier idea of Frederick Rabbit.

Kate spent a lot of time reading and re-reading the text. Then she found some images of leaves on Clip Art.
"I'm happy! Leaves works by the way. You have to type in leaves - it's really good!"

Kate was relieved to have 'completed the task' but she was not pleased with the outcome and the process had not been creative. As well as the leaves she added a curved arrow image below the text: "I must have gone round in circles."
When asked about this she said, "Going round in circles. I just put an arrow for some reason. I don't know why."

 

 

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                       

 
 
Interactive Education Project, Graduate School of Education, University of Bristol
Tel: 01179 287105 Email: mary.oconnell@bris.ac.uk