PINO

OSCAR

MISS DAISY AND MISS VILE

MISS DAISY (AS A BOOK) AND PINO (AS A PENCIL)

Because I am working on Friday and over the weekend I will be spending the time I have to reflect on the course and fix up my blog as well as my del.icio.us and netvibes account so as to have it ready for marking.

Pino is the school bully. He is a big kid, the leader, and never does his homework; he always picks on the smaller kids to do it for him, but no one knows that he struggles with his homework (that is why he bullies others into doing it for him). One of these kids is Oscar.

Oscar is quiet and reserved and goes unnoticed but is really a genius inventor. They are both in Miss Daisy’s class.

Miss Daisy is a kind and patient teacher. Although Pino continually disrupts her class she never exerts any authority, she is passively aggressive and just bottles up her anger.

Then one day, Pino decides to play a trick on Oscar and hides one of his inventions that he is working on. Oscar loses the plot and cries as the other kids laugh at him. Miss Daisy raises her voice and Pino talks back to her as she questions him. She cannot take it and leaves the classroom, leaving everyone stunned.

The next day something strange happens. Miss Daisy turns up looking very different. She comes in with a cane and looks much scarier than the Miss Daisy that everyone knows. As class begins a few kids start to break away into gossip and “BANG”, Miss Daisy slams her cane on the table. They sit there frightened. The day goes by without further disruption and as the end of school bell is about to ring Miss Daisy hands them all a sheet with 100 questions to complete as homework. They all know that they cannot finish this by next class and plead with her but she refuses and slams her cane again and says that those who do not finish will stay back for detention and will write out lines.

The next day everyone turns up bleary eyed and tattered. Most of the class had finished, Oscar had no trouble but had to do double the workload because he had been bullied by Pino. However when marking the work Miss Daisy notices and calls Pino to stay back after class. He had been caught out. But he maintains that he had done it himself. Miss Daisy forces him to write lines until his hands become blistered and cackles an eerie cackle that sends shivers up Pino’s spine. When he has finished she looks him the eye and tells him that his punishment is not yet over. He walks away with deep suspicions – something was not right.

The next day Pino wakes up to find that he has turned into a pencil. He looks up and sees Miss Daisy. He screams at her and she turns around. “My name is Miss Vile and I am a witch … Miss Daisy has lets just say is booked out for the time being (cackles)”. She explains to him that his punishment is to do homework for the rest of his life. He pleads with her to let him go. She cackles and throws him into her satchel. When she arrives in class she puts the satchel down next to her table. The closest desk is Oscar’s desk.

Whilst she goes out for lunch, allowing Oscar to stay in the room to work on his invention, Pino tries to call out to him. Begging for his help Oscar refuses. However the boys soon realise that Miss Daisy is inside the satchel as well. The tape that had been covering her mouth had fallen off and she was able to call out to the boys. She had been turned into a book. She explains that Miss Vile is her evil side who was able to take over her body when she had broken down in class. Pino feels guilty for causing that and Oscar who wants to help Miss Daisy offers his assistance. Miss Daisy explains that Miss Vile is able to be sustained because for all the evil she does in one day she records it in the book that Miss Daisy has been transformed into.

Now the only way to save Miss Daisy is if Miss Vile is unable to do anything evil. They all knew that she did this through the excessive amounts of homework she gave the class. And so Oscar offers his invention which was a homework machine. He had been fed up doing Pino’s homework so created a machine that would do it. That way everyone in class could do finish their homework.

But although Miss Vile was struggling to maintain her evilness, she was still alive. How could this be? Pino and Oscar work together and realise that all the bad behaviour that Pino had done was still stored in his being and everything Miss Vile had written in the book was written with Pino and so her evil combined with Pino’s evils in the past keep her alive. And so the boys realise that Pino must apologise to all those he had hurt and the only way how was through letters. Pino writes a letter to everyone including Oscar who delivers them all at lunch. However it didn’t work and Oscar realises that Miss Vile knew what they were up to. Then Pino feels the rubber at the end of the pencil burning up.

Then it occurs to Miss Daisy that Pino can erase the lists. Oscar grabs Pino and rubs out all the words in Miss Daisy as Miss Vile is coming towards them, by now she had realised they knew and was trying to stop them. As she comes her body begins to disappear until the final word had been erased. Then once gone Miss Daisy returns to normal but Pino stays the same. He then realises that the last person to apologise to was Miss Daisy. He does so and returns back to normal. Pino and Oscar had saved the day. Oscar now helps Pino with his work and although still two different characters they respect each other and are friends.

I’ve realised that I have pretty much reached the 1000 word story expected in the Final Exercise in what was supposed to be a plot summary and so I’ve sort of gotten to the point where now I’m unsure as to what to do. So far I’ve tried to follow the course as it is set and even re-did the second lesson because I had read the exercise wrong. I think I’m only going to refer to the course as a guide now; for ideas and simulation. Also I’ve lost faith in the course because the “useful links” aren’t useful at all because they are links to subscription based services, some links don’t even open! I’ve enjoyed the experience of writing for children thus far but I seriously doubt the effectiveness of the course itself. The structure is well defined, set out well but I’ve encountered too many problems to really feel confident in recommending this to anyone else interested in the course. I think without my motivation in doing the course I would have given up by now.

So for the answers to lesson three please see “Part Three – Contemporary Settings”.

Again this section took me longer than one hour; I actually ended up spending about 3 hours completing this section because I had to go over it. So in essence I’ve done 4 hours of the course, but because I am still motivated to do this I want to finish it.

So go to “Part Two – Appealing Characters” for my progress on my children’s story.

I began the first lesson by going to the library to pick up a few children’s books for inspiration. I then did the readings and completed the exercise. I’m going to test this idea on my cousins to see if they liked what I came up so as to get a clear idea of what sort of stories appeal to them. This first section which I allocated a 1 hour duration to, actually went on for about 2 hours. The creative process is indeed a very time consuming one at that!

Realising that I’ve actually written quite lengthy responses, I’ve included my answers to the short course exercises on a separate page (see the pages list for “Short Course: Writing for Children”. Lesson 1 Exercises can be found on the page titled “Part One – A Demanding Audience”)

Below are images of the books I found and some photos of my cousins going through the books.

• Part One – A Demanding Audience
• Part Two – Appealing Characters
• Part Three – Contemporary Settings
• Final Exercise – Telling Tales

Along with these components is a link to an article by author Diana Wynne Jones about writing for children. Each of the above components has references to particular sections of Jones’ article. At the end of the article are also further reading recommendations and links as well as some tips and some final exercises. I intend to complete these additional exercises but will only refer to the links if I am having difficulty with the tasks.

Taking into consideration my work commitments and other assignments, my approach to the course will be broken down as follows:

I’ve decided to undertake the course during the evening when I’m a bit more relaxed. I also find that I am able to write better at night.

What are my expectations …

What outcomes do you expect to achieve? I expect to improve my writing skills and learn more about the fundamentals of writing. I also hope to compile a short book with at least 3 short stories by the time Christmas comes around to give as a gift to my two cousins who I am hoping the book will give encouragement and enjoyment to, but as we are only required to complete 4hrs of the course I expect to complete one short story.

What do you expect the learning experience to be like? I expect the learning experience to be challenging as I will be learning independently and will need to really try and tap into my creative side. I also need to organise my time better so that I stay commited to the project and need to keep an eye out for inspiration for my stories.

What type of support are you expecting from the course? I expect to find links to additional resources to help supplement our learning and I expect there to be some form of feedback mechanism that we can use.

At this stage of my process I feel very excited about starting the course. I have many ideas floating around and also have ideas about how I can aid my online learning such as borrowing children’s books from my local library, getting input from my young cousins and collaborating with a few of my design friends to bring to life my characters visually. I think the reason why I am excited is because it’s something different and I am confident that I can create something that will truly be enjoyable.

I’ve already posted my course selection on the discussion board but am still waiting for a reply from Mark but hopefully it will come soon because I really want to get started!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting/minicourse

Considering that I have not really engaged in creative writing I browsed the beginner courses available.

I have included below a copy of the course listings …

The Art of Reviewing Learn how to review other writers’ short stories, scripts and poems, and develop skills to review your own work.

Finding Inspiration Learn to find inspiration for your writing in everyday life or from enduring stories.

Finding Your Voice Develop your own writing style by working to your own strengths and interests.

How to Start a Poem Learn how to lay down ideas and word structures which will form the bones of your poetry with exercises and advice from the professionals.

How to Start a Short Story Set aside time to write and develop the confidence to put pen to paper for the first time.

Rhythm, Rhyme and Other Techniques Discover how the placement of words in your poetry can alter their mood and meaning.

What Is a Short Story? Learn what makes a short story tick and how to keep your readers engaged.

The courses which most appeal to me were Finding Inspiration, Finding Your Voice, How to Start a Short Story and What Is a Short Story. Each of these courses consist of a clear objective stated at the beginning and then the course is broken up into parts which include exercises to complete. There is also an external link which provides learners with articles that may help them progress through the course, as well as additional exercises.

The reason why I decided I wanted to do a creative writing course is because I believe that I am a person who can articulate themselves well through words and who has many ideas and experiences that would make a great story. I’ve always had a dream (among many others) to become an author as well, although I believe I wouldn’t be able to make a living out of it because I have a tendency to start writing but never really sustain it and so I never finish it!

Upon further navigation through the site I also came across a children’s writing course.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/getwriting/children

I love kids and I love helping my little cousins with their homework but I have found that some of my young cousins struggle to read and speak English despite attending English-spoken primary schools. I think undertaking this course would help me become a better writer, but at the same time it can help me produce something that will help and encourage my cousins to be involved with and enjoy their education. I have an idea of compiling a series of short stories for them to read and so I may be looking at the short stories course as well. I am eager to take this course but at the back of my mind I don’t know how committed I will be to it because lately I have been very stressed because of time restraints that come with commitments outside of class. But for now it looks like the option to go with.

In my search I came across a few useful sites:

• http://www.bbc.co.uk/learning/onlinecourses/
• http://www.latitudeu.com/course/user/search.aspx

I think I need to expand on my search as I’m not getting many good results. I am really interested in the BBC site as I either wanted to learn a language or do something that had to do with cooking but I came across the creative writing section and am considering it as an option.