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Cathy Lewis

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Think of the wizards and witches, dragons, ice bears, trolls, dwarves, ... Gallows and dungeons. Bogey jokes! Case study: Tank Museum. Life in a tank snippets ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: Cathy Lewis


1
  • Cathy Lewis
  • Email cathy_at_froghopper-design.co.uk
  • www.froghopper-design.co.uk

2
  • The UK has just had the least
  • sunny summer since records
  • began

3
A dream come true
4
  • Interpretation for children What can we learn
    from the top childrens authors?

5
What we are going to do
  • Consider the tricks of the trade used by
    successful authors and how we can apply these
    principles to interpretation
  • Look at how to target the age range, hook their
    interest, keep them excited, create characters,
    use illustrations and introduce activities for
    all ages.
  • Focus on what todays children like and want
    using popular books as an example
  • Think about how to encourage intergenerational
    conversations

6
How I hope youll feel after the course
  • Inspired to give it a go
  • Re-enthused about todays children
  • Excited about the possibilities of childrens
    interpretation at your site
  • Confident about targeting different age groups
  • Able to distinguish between educational projects
    and interpretation projects.
  • Ready to have FUN!

7
Wake up!
  • Whizzpopping words

8
Maybe it wont be dull and boring.Maybe it will
beFUN!
9
Myth one
  • Children dont read anymore

10
  • Tell that to JK Rowling!

11
What do all these block-buster movies have in
common?
  • Harry Potter
  • Stormbreaker
  • Eragon
  • Lemony Snickets A Series of Unfortunate Events
  • The Spiderwick Chronicles

12
  • They all started out as best-selling
  • books

13
Screen and paper literacies have formed
a symbiotic relationship. Popular books are made
into block-buster movies, and as a result, more
books are bought and read. Childrens stories
have been transformed into films, television
series, computer games and intricate websites.
All these exciting, cutting-edge texts have one
thing in common they started out as books.
  • Prue Goodwin, Reading in the Middle Years (9-11),
    Books for Keeps, September 2007

14
So words can still do it for kids
  • But they have to be the right words!

15
Myth two
  • Children dont know how to play
  • anymore

16
Myth three
  • Children cant enjoy themselves
  • without technology

17
From a study by the Childrens Society charity
  • When it comes to making happy memories,
  • a day out is better for children than playing
  • with a must-have gadgetA good memory has an
  • element of magic about it

18
About kids reading
  • A study of childrens reading habits carried
    out in 2005 by the National Literacy Trust
    states
  • When asked specifically about fiction
    preferences, the most frequently chosen types
    were adventure, comedy and horror/ghost stories.

19
So your interpretation should include
  • Adventure/excitement
  • Humour
  • The promise of FUN
  • And a ghost if you have one!

20
It should not be
21
1) A Mrs Trunchball Teaching Tirade
22
(No Transcript)
23
2) A Twits Trail
24
The six rules for splendiferous interpretation
1) Choose the right writer 2) Know children 3)
Target the age range 4) Hook them! 5) Create
characters 6) Lose the parents!
25
1) Choose the right writer
  • Writing for any audience is about respecting that
    audience
  • Writing for a child does not demand less skill
    than writing for an adult
  • A childrens guide is not an adult guide without
    the big words
  • Write for children not at them
  • Make sure you pick the right person for the job

26
2) Know children
  • Your interpretation must engage with todays
    children. To
  • do it right, you need to know them.
  • Listen to children, observe them, read their
    books, watch their tv programmes.
  • Talk to them in a language they relate to. Chat,
    gossip, giggle with them. Dont teach or preach.
  • Avoid hip jargon like Totally radical,
    Whatever!, Oh, man, Well lush (or the
    Australian equivalents!)

27
Horrible Histories by Terry Deary
  • The best-selling childrens non-fiction books
    ever. They appeal to boys and girls.
  • Why? They are funny. They are subversive. Theyve
    got lots of toilet humour!
  • They have made history appealing to many children
    who would never have read a conventional history
    book. Read them! 

28
3) Target the age range
  • Childrens books are rigorously divided into age
    groups
  • 4-7s Picture books
  • 5-8s Illustrated first readers
  • 9-12s Novels
  • 12s Novels and cross-over fiction
  •  
  • Authors have to be absolutely sure which age
    group they
  • are writing for. The sentence structure, plot
    complexity,
  • word count, etc, must all be tailored for the age
    range.
  •  

29
In the world of interpretation, the compromise
is to produce one piece of childrens
interpretation, but layer it   4-7s Will
read the stories told in the illustrations.
Parents and older children can then read the text
to them and explain as necessary   5-8s Will
read illustrations, headings, subheadings and
captions.   9-12s Will do all the above plus
read the body text. Write your text for them.  
30
  • Try to make your activities as broadly-accessible
  • as possible to target all the age groups (even
    granny!). For example, get them to
  • Imagine a scene
  • Explore/find/discover
  • Follow a quest, undertake a mission
  • Try something new
  • Interview others in their group
  • Come to their own conclusions
  • Do fun things like

31
Pull ugly faces
32
Crawl on their knees
33
Take a different perspective
34
Wake up!
  • Amazing activities

35
4) Hook them!
  • No matter how fantastic a story or piece of
    interpretation
  • is, it wont get anywhere unless children read
    it. So you
  • need to hook them.  
  • Hook them with
  • A punchy title or sub-title
  • Fun or imagination-grabbing illustrations
  • An introduction that makes it irresistible
  • The promise of FUN

36
Read the opening sentences of these childrens
books
  • Old Granny Greengrass had her finger chopped off
    in the
  • butchers when she was buying half a leg of lamb
  • (The Peppermint Pig by Nina Bawden)
  • Until he was four years old, James Henry Trotter
    had a
  • happy life
  • (James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl)
  • Something was tickling his feet. His bare toes
    had come
  • into contact, buried under the quilt, with
    something odd
  • (The Shapeshifter by Ali Sparkes)

37
A mysterious phantom haunted our school. No one
ever saw him. No one knew where he lived. But he
haunted our school for more than seventy
years (Goosebumps by R L Stine) It was 7
minutes after midnight. The dog was lying on the
grass in the middle of the lawn in front of Mrs
Shears house. Its eyes were closed (The Curious
Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by Mark
Haddon) What a lot of hairy-faced men there are
around nowadays (The Twits by Roald Dahl)
38
Case study Winchester Cathedral childrens trail
All this does is confirm a childs suspicion that
cathedrals are boring!
39
(No Transcript)
40
Wake up!
  • Cook up a hook

41
5) Create characters
  • Children relate to children. People relate to
    people.  Think of all the
  • fantastic characters in todays fiction,
    characters that children get to
  • know, become friends with
  • Harry, Ron and Hermione (Harry Potter)
  • Lyra Belaqua and Will (Northern Lights)
  • Alex Rider (Stormbreaker)
  • Artemis Fowl and Holly Short (Artemis Fowl)
  • Think of the wizards and witches, dragons, ice
    bears, trolls, dwarves,
  • fairies, daemons and all the other wonderful
    creatures that fill
  • childrens books

42
What characters and stories will ignite
childrens imagination at your site?
  • Who is going to tell the story?
  • How is he/she going to tell it first person, in
    character?
  • Dont just talk about the importance of a place,
    talk about the people who lived or worked there
  • Dont just talk about the importance of artefacts
    talk about the people who used them
  • What did children do in those times? Give your
    child visitors something to relate to
  • Give comparisons about life then and now

43
Wake up!
  • Childrens books of today.
  • Whats hot, whats not

44
    6) Lose the parents! A top principle of any
childrens story is to lose the parents! In
fiction, children cant have a proper adventure
if a parent or guardian is present. How many
childrens stories can you think of (other than
picture books for the youngest readers) where the
child goes through the adventure together with an
adult?
45
 For example JK Rowlings Harry Potter
(orphan) Jacqueline Wilsons Tracey Beaker
stories (orphans) Phillip Pullmans Northern
Lights trilogy (one orphan, and one child with a
single mum who happens to be ill) Enid Blytons
Famous Five or Secret Seven books (parents are
always away, so the kids are left in the care of
weird or doddery relatives) Roald Dahls James
and the Giant Peach (parents eaten by an enormous
angry rhinoceros!)  
46
How to lose the parents in interpretation
  • In interpretation, write your childrens guide
    so that the child can lead.
  • Let them run ahead and find things for
    themselves, explore, have an adventure, face
    danger (finding secret passages, dark dungeons,
    the witchs tree, etc), then run back and show
    their parents what theyve discovered
  • Dont produce a family trail which is designed
    for mum and dad to use as a preaching tool as
    they frogmarch the kids around a site.
  • But equally dont produce a childrens trail that
    excludes adults. Encourage inter-generational
    activities. Make it fun for the grown-ups too.

47
Magic moment
  • Corfe Castle story

48
The big difference
  • Interpretation is NOT a book on a wall.
  • Keep it short, snappy and fast-moving.

49
Case Study New Corfe guide
  • Casual mention of ghost
  • and dungeon on front cover!
  • Illustrations reconstruct the medieval world
  • Back cover summarises content
  • Toilet humour
  • NT best-seller

50
Case study Contemporary art exhibition
  • No right or wrong
  • Encourages kids to interview others
  • Have to give reasons why like or dislike
  • What each piece makes them feel

51
Case study Ghosts trail
  • Tells the ghost stories but asks kids to
    investigate
  • Have to rate each area Ghost free zone or
    Seriously spooky
  • Gallows and dungeons
  • Bogey jokes!

52
Case study Tank Museum
  • Life in a tank snippets
  • Did you knows?
  • Naughty names!
  • Toilet humour

53
Is he cracking the WW1 toilet joke?
54
Downe House audio trail
  • Charles Darwin found school boring, thought his
  • university years were a waste of time, and felt
    sick
  • at the sight of blood! So how did he get to
    become
  • one of the worlds greatest scientists? Find out
    as
  • you follow this amazing audio trail

55
Headings to hook them
  • Bird-watching, that famous boat trip and the
    importance of dead pigeons!
  • Boundary Oaks Where Darwin got beetle-maniabut
    what was bugging his girlfriend?
  • The Church and how Darwin managed to upset
    everyone
  • Great House Meadow Where Darwin went back to
    beesand did weird experiments with worms!

56
Wild Things
  • Aimed at 4-7 year olds
  • First introduction to wildlife
  • Give common animals and plants a memorable twist
  • Toilet humour poo, bottoms and belching!
  • Used by lots of interpreters

57
Summing up Childrens text, whether fact or
fiction, is not a dumbed-down version of adult
text. Learning is like vegetable puree The
right words always have, still do, and always
will, ignite childrens imagination.   
58
Magic moment
  • Bens story

59
And finally, two messages
60
A MESSAGEto children Who Have Read This
BookWhen you grow upand have children of your
owndo please remembersomething importanta
stodgy parent is no fun at allWhat a child
wantsand deservesis a parent who
isSPARKY(From Danny the Champion of the World
by Roald Dahl)
61
A MESSAGEto Interpreters Who Have
Attended This SeminarWhen you provide
interpretation for childrendo please
remembersomething important stodgy
interpretation is no fun at allWhat a child
wantsand deservesis interpretation which
isSPARKY(Cathy Lewis with a little help from
Roald Dahl)
62
Cathy Lewis Email cathy_at_froghopper-design.co.uk
www.froghopper-design.co.uk
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