Children's Writing BWR104

Course Structure: Children's Writing BWR104

1. Introduction: Understanding children, their thoughts, needs, development.
2. Overview of Children's Writing: Categories (fiction & non fiction), understanding the market place; analyse & understand what is needed for the different categories, etc.
3. Conceptualisation: Conceiving a concept,where & how to find inspiration/influence. Developing a concept, how to plan.
4. Children's Writing for Periodicals: Children's pages in magazines, newspapers, etc.
5. Short Stories
6. Non-Fiction: Texts: Writing to satisfy curriculum. Other (e.g. nature, history, biography, hobbies).
7. Fiction: settings, characterisation, fantasy, science fiction, adventure.
8. Picture Books and Story Books
9. Editing your work: Grammar, spelling & punctuation. Improving clarity. Cleaning out clutter; expansions.
10. Project - write a short story, picture book or kid's page for a (hypothetical) periodical.

Aims: Children's Writing BWR104

• Describe children's cognitive development and target writing to be appropriate to various developmental stages.
• Explain the nature and scope of writing for children.
• Describe the process of planning a written manuscript of children's writing.
• Describe the planning and processes involved in writing articles for children's magazines.
• Develop a short story for children to read.
• Discuss the specific requirements associated with writing children's non-fiction
• Describe the various categories of children's fiction and the writing processes involved.
• Explain the scope and nature of literature aimed at young children.
• Explain the scope and significance of editing skills and processes for children's writing.
• Plan, evaluate, edit and present a piece of writing for children

What you will be doing during this Course

• Develop lists of imaginary titles and brief descriptions of stories that would be appropriate in your society (or country) for children of different age groups.
• Analyse the page(s) in a text aimed at children in terms of language complexity and style, conciseness of the writing, content, graphic layout, etc
• Determine concepts for children's writing.
• Develop outlines that would help you to write about each concept.
• Develop a set of guidelines (or a plan), that a writer should follow irregular preparation of a children's page in a newspaper, and consider what, in your opinion, is the purpose of a children's page in a daily newspaper.
• Discuss how you would approach writing a comic, and why you think this would be the best approach for you?
• Write short articles or stories, suitable for situations such as: An educational magazine, A preschooler or infant school age magazine or a teenage boy or girl magazine
• Write a short story.
• Identify a non-fiction book for children which you would be suited to write.
• Write an outline for a proposed non-fiction book. In your outline, you would include a list of major subject areas (or chapters) that the book would cover and a brief description of the content of each chapter. Include a brief description of how the book would be illustrated (i.e. are photos appropriate, line drawings or paintings appropriate?). You would then write one or two pages for your non-fiction book.
• Write a fantasy, adventure or science fiction short story for a 7-8 year old, which fits specified criteria.
• Write a story for a 5-6 year old child.
• Edit some sample short articles.
• Plan, then write, a children's short story, a picture book or children's pages for a newspaper.

Each lesson culminates in an assignment which is submitted to the Academy, marked by the Academy's tutors and returned to you with any relevant suggestions, comments, and if necessary, extra reading.

Fire up a child's imagination through storytelling
Children's writing is a specialised craft. It is a rewarding, inspirational, and often demanding, branch of writing. Very few people can easily recall their own childhood, and write in a manner that children can relate to. For most, it takes many hours, months, and possibly years, to write a unique and appealing story that children will want to read. This course is designed to set you on an appropriate course for more successful writing geared to the children's market.