On September 14, Writeherewritenow organised a 'Doodle and Decipher' Workshop for its members. Because it is examination time, only 6 members showed up which was quite a disappointment. Megha, Richa and I had come up with the module, mailing each other and brainstorming over telephone conversations. The idea was to get the children to draw and then exchange their drawings with one another and write a story based on that. Each child was given two blank sheets. One blank sheet was divided into four squares where the child had to draw a human character, a scenery, an image and an object. The children were then told to exchange their papers and they came up with stories ranging from humorous to gruesome.
Today, we went to Frank Anthony Public School. 60 children took part in the Workshop on story starters. On 27th, we do a journaling session with the Frank Anthony Students and see how they respond to it.
1 comment:
the contrast between 6 and 60 is massive, isn't it? it takes great flexibility to deal with just a few kids at a time, and a brimming classroom.
well, it's a bit sad about the 'doodle and decipher' turn-out though. i thought it was a really cool idea, and i am sure you will get an opportunity to try this workshop out with a greater number of kids sometime soon.
i had thought i would write a report myself about your 'doodle and decipher' workshop. but i managed to lose all the photographs i took for a silly technical glitch (totally my fault).
my only observation about the whole endeavour is that i realized it's so much more difficult to address this age group. especially when they come from a privileged background where they are generally showered with a lot of attention and are surrounded by a lot of opportunities. such privileges makes kids pretty confident, even over-confident at times, and they tend to take things less seriously. i have so far done workshops only with marginalized youth, young people who come from more challenged socio-economic backgrounds. and i have felt that they are generally more serious about skills you want them to develop. as a matter of fact, this is exactly what our intern at Kolkata Sanved, Shuktara Lal, said in one of her comments on this blog earlier. i did not quite understand then what she meant. but now i do.
:)
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