Wakefield Children as Writers
at a Historic Site
Creative Writing for Learning
in History at KS2/KS3
Ann Hamblen Writer and Creative Writing Teacher ann.hamblen@btinternet.com
Angela Rawson Wakefield Museums and Galleries Education and Outreach Officer
angelarawson@wakefield.gov.uk
Learning and Access Team 2005
CONTENTS
1. Introduction/Why creativity?
2. How to use this pack
Once we’re there … the Sandal Creative Writing Project
• During the visit: activities on site
• "Here's one we did earlier" - poems by Year 3 and Year 6
3. Making your own visit
•
•
•
•
Before the visit: organizational checklist
Before the visit: classroom activities
During the visit: resources available
After the visit: classroom activities
4. Resources
• Pupil sheets – senses sheet, additional cards, etc.
• Background information on the castle including images of castle and the
handling materials
Medieval “Living Castle”
Civil War “Dying Castle”
Interesting finds
• Sources of further information/material
Learning and Access Team 2005
1. Introduction
Sandal Castle, like any historic site, is wonderful for inspiring children’s
creative imagination – this is a place very different from school or home,
completely new and strange to many children, and full of possibilities for
discovering and making meaning.
This pack is the result of a literacy project which ran at Sandal Castle in
October 2004 and February 2005 involving classes of KS2 children. As part of
the project children experienced the site as it is now, found out what it had once
been like, and worked together with a creative writer to put together pieces of
imaginative free verse for group performance to evoke change over time.
We hope that this pack will enable other teachers to take our activities and
adapt them for their own use, at Sandal and at other historic sites.
Ann Hamblen Writer and Creative Writing Teacher ann.hamblen@btinternet.com
Angela Rawson Wakefield Museums and Galleries Education and Outreach Officer
angelarawson@wakefield.gov.uk
April 2005
Learning and Access Team 2005
Why creativity?
We welcome the encouragement we have all received from the QCA’s most recent
publication on creativity1, to restore this vital dimension of all exciting learning experiences
for children and adults alike.
The QCA reminds us that:
First, [the characteristics of creativity] always involve thinking or behaving
imaginatively. Second, overall this imaginative activity is purposeful: that is, it
is directed to achieving an objective. Third, these processes must generate
something original. Fourth, the outcome must be of value in relation to the
objective. 2
and we believe that these four characteristics are evident in the approach we outline in this
pack.
Below are just some of the strands of the QCA “recipe” for managing a richly creative
learning culture which our project schools were providing for their students:
Fire pupils' imagination through varied learning experiences
•
give pupils first-hand experiences through visits and contact with creative
people
•
use stimulating starting points such as artefacts, problems, stories with
human interest
•
make activities relevant to pupils' lives
Build partnerships to enrich learning
•
work with other agencies to get new ideas and access to resources
Provide a stimulating physical environment
•
stimulate pupils' curiosity by ensuring they have first-hand experience of
natural and made objects, and the natural and built environments
•
celebrate creative learning in shared spaces, classrooms, outside areas and
beyond school.
Extract from QCA 2003
1
Creativity: find it, promote it
2
QCA 2003
www.ncaction.org.uk/creativity/
All our futures: Creativity, culture and education National Advisory Committee report DfEE 1999 (page 29), quoted in
QCA, 2003
Learning and Access Team 2005
2. How to use this pack
This pack contains a description of the activities that took place during the original projects in
October and February.
The activities can be copied exactly or adapted for use with your own class in mind. As you
look through this pack, it will become clear that the children involved in the pilot were guided
through the activities at speed! Each group spent just two hours on the Sandal site. The
activities and the times given therefore relate to this. For a more relaxed visit it is envisaged
that the activity could take around 3 ½ hours including a break for lunch on the site.
Once we’re there … the Sandal Creative Writing Project
•
•
•
During the visit: activities on site
"Here's one we did earlier" - poems by Year 3 and Year 6
Some other activities for use on site
During the visit: activities on site
Stage 1: Tour the site
After arriving on site, children made a brief tour of the castle. This was done before
visiting the centre and was done as a whole class. Children were split into four
groups each glued to an adult (this site, like most, has its danger spots!) and were
asked to think about what they could see, hear, touch and smell now. To reduce
any historical influences the children were discouraged from asking “historical”
questions at this stage. They were asked to give their group’s adult some of their
sense impressions in as much detail as they could, completing the sentence
starters, “I can see …”, “I can hear …”, “I can smell…”, “I can touch…”. The adults
acted as scribes, using the senses sheet provided in this pack. Around 20 minutes
was spent on this activity, though more time could be spent here.
Learning and Access Team 2005
Stage 2: Creating verse three – The Castle as it is now.
Returning to the Visitor Centre, Anne (Creative Writer) asked the children to think
about their sense impressions from the tour of the site. She then asked them to
give her examples, thinking about alliteration, onomatopoeia, imagery and simile.
These were collected and scribed onto one sheet of flipchart paper, pointing out
that many really good detailed sense impressions may not get included, but could
be used in individual/small group poems back at school. Each line of the verse was
the completion of one of the sentence starters used above e.g. “I can see …”. This
was the pattern set for all three verses. Some of the sentences needed a little
tweaking, but most fitted into the poem frame without much change. Again Anne
spent 20 minutes on this activity.
Stage 3: Creating verses one and two
Verses one and two required the children and adults to carry out research using the
displays in the Visitor Centre as well as artefact evidence, both real and replica,
from the site. The children worked in the original four groups with at least one adult
per group. Two groups were asked to work on the “living castle”, and two on the
“dying castle” (Civil War). The groups used particular areas of the displays and
objects from the handling collection (see back of pack for further details). Each pair
of groups swapped activity half way through, so that every child spent time in the
exhibition, and time examining artefacts and other evidence. The instructions for
each working group can be seen on the following page. A larger version can be
found at the back of the pack. These instructions can be cut out and laminated for
use with your own class.
Learning and Access Team 2005
Working Groups for the activity – A minimum of four adults are needed for this activity
GROUP A
Living Castle (Verse 1)
Time: 20 mins then swap with B
Task:
You are living in the castle as it develops and grows. What can you see?
What can you hear? What can you smell? What can you touch? Collect
sense impressions. Look at images, artefacts – everything you can find
in your area of display. Imagine you are there!
Resources: Exhibition - everything except the Civil War section
GROUP B
Living Castle (Verse 1)
Time: 20 mins then swap with A
Task:
Explore the artefacts and images. Some of the artefacts are real, and
some are copies of artefacts that were found or used here. All date from
the period through which the castle was growing, changing and in use.
Imagine you are there amongst the hustle and bustle of daily life. What
can you see? What can you hear? What can you smell? What can you
touch? Collect sense impressions. What can you work out about life in
the castle?
Resources: Artefacts / replicas / images of finds from the castle / artists
reconstruction images
GROUP C
Task:
Dying Castle (Verse 2)
Time: 20 mins then swap with D
You are living in the castle as it comes to the end of its useful life. What
can you see? What can you hear? What can you smell? What can you
touch? Collect sense impressions. Look at images, artefacts – everything
you can find in your area of display. Imagine you are there!
Resources: Exhibition area dealing with the Civil War
GROUP D Dying Castle (Verse 2)
Task:
Time: 20 mins then swap with C
Explore the artefacts and images. Some of the artefacts are real, and
some are copies of artefacts that were found or used here. All date from
the last use of the castle in the Civil War when the Royalists tried to hold
it for the King and were defeated. After this the Parliamentarians
destroyed much of what remained of the castle. Imagine you are there
and see them in use. What can you see? What can you hear? What can
you smell? What can you touch? Collect sense impressions. What can
you work out about life in the castle?
Resources: Artefacts / replicas / images of finds from the castle / artists
reconstruction images
Learning and Access Team 2005
Anne then repeated the feedback exercise, asking the children to give her their
sense impressions from the “Living Castle” and the “Dying Castle”. Again the
children were encouraged to make their impressions as creative and imaginative as
they could. The impressions were scribed into Verse 1, and then Verse 2, one
flipchart page each, by gathering individual sense impressions from Groups A and
B, and then from Groups C and D.
This activity took 40 mins.
Stage 4: Putting it all together
When all three verses are created, the poem can then be read as a whole. Verse one
looks at the “Living Castle”, verse two the “Dying Castle” and verse three as the Castle
is now. From our experience, this is the stage when the children go “Wow! Did we do
that!” Any sense impressions not included in this poem can be taken back to school
and used to make individual poems or used to improve or adapt the original poem
when there is more time.
This activity took 20 minutes.
Stage 5: Putting it all in context – Connecting the evidence to the story
The final stage was to encourage the children to visualise the work they had produced
and connect it with the evidence from the site itself. This was achieved by taking the
children back out on to the site. Unlike the first tour, the children were prompted to ask
questions about the site and its history. By having some knowledge about the site, they
asked focused questions such as where the bread was baked, where the toilets were,
and where the nine skeletons were found. This time the site inspired the children to
think about what life was like in the past, and it stimulated their imagination and
creativity.
Tour of the site took 20 mins
Learning and Access Team 2005
"Here's one we did earlier" - poems by Year 3 and Year 6
Here are two poem drafts produced by children during the first week of the pilot project, by
Y6 and Y3/4 students. The footnotes to the first of these indicate what kinds of research fed
into some of the lines produced, to work with the children’s own previous experience (real or
virtual), and their capacity to imagine and empathise.
Sandal Castle October 2004
Once there was
smell of strong chicken stew1
animals grazing in the fields below
cattle screaming as they are slaughtered for food
hooves slapping on hard-packed soil2
yellow-orange flames flickering in the dark3
trumpets calling4
people murmuring, charging about, shouting
gates creaking open and shut5
Then there were
dead bodies, war-killed, lying on the ground
sword slicing through my heart
jewellery, armour, fallen, littered
blown-up fiery castle
cannon balls flying, gliding through the air6
punishing the castle
stench of defeat
people fleeing from the burning castle7
men shouting orders to each other
rotting flesh, prisoners dragged away
babies crying, horses neighing
1
Interpretation of evidence of cooking pot (artefact handled) and found remains of bones/list of larder
contents (card/display material)
2
Display material in the visitors’ centre exhibition.
3
Candlestick – part of handling collection
4
Account payment to musicians (card)
5
Artist’s reconstructed image
6
Handling collection
7
Illustration from castles reference book in visitors’ centre, and from exhibition material.
Learning and Access Team 2005
Now there is
wind whistling in my ears8
trees blowing, rattling
brown rocky ridges
wooden snake-like steps by rocky ruins
wind blowing in my face
gas spreading viciously in the distance
Wakefield rugby ground
Wakefield city spreading across the land
whole giant entire city
little birds singing their quiet songs, robin tweeting
wet soggy crumbly stones
crisp wet grass
gentle breeze through trees
Havercroft J&I Y69
8
This verse was constructed first, as soon as the children arrived on site. This is all the direct evidence
of their senses in the here and now.
9
Notes from Anne’s journal for this group’s visit:
- really enthusiastic and open – believe in themselves as learners – museum a.m.
- very good relationships with their adults, easily include me
- good questioners - experienced
- loved the stories of the ring and the dead bodies
- desperately keen to make sense of history – “Did the Germans bomb it?” On site, children
reveal what they know and don’t know – want to fit it all together.
- some really talented users of compressions of language - twig very quickly – naturally introduce
personification, alliteration, onomatopoeia, simile, repetition and rhythms that re-enforce
meaning.
- sense of pride in their creation and in their new-found ownership of this place:
“Can we take our poem with us?”
“I’m going to get my mum to bring me here!”
“I want to get my mum here and tell her all about it!”
- completely different kinds of questions when we walk the site at the end of our work together
– much more focused. E.g students who’ve studied the garderobe cleaning image want to know
exactly where … also where the bodies were buried, where they are now, where the ring was
found …
Learning and Access Team 2005
Sandal Castle
October 2004
Once there was
clanking of iron-shod hooves
smell of roasting meat
heat from the cooking fire
echoing noise of busy castle
banging of working people
sweat dripping off very smelly people
crunching shovels ringing and banging
creaking doors, barking dogs
ringing of heavy armour
screaming and shouting
horrible water, stale, smelly, damp
loud trumpet music
Then there were
cannons firing at the walls
cannon balls smashing the building
trumpets announcing attack
people crying
wind, and stones falling from the walls
skeleton in the dungeon
men falling, screaming
dogs running up and down, scared
soldiers bleeding
Now there is
a big white lake
a ruined well like a jungle inside, bars on it
ruins of the castle
a man jogging up and down the steps
dogs barking, traffic humming
footsteps on wooden stairs creaking
wind whistling, blowing the trees
people talking
Standbridge Y3/4
Learning and Access Team 2005
3. Making your own Visit
If you wish to make your own visit and use this pack, the following includes guidelines for
booking as well as ideas and suggestions for work at school before and after your visit.
•
•
•
•
Before the visit: organisational checklist
Before the visit: classroom activities
During the visit: resources available
After the visit: classroom activities
Before the visit: organisational checklist
•
Contact the education team on 01924 305902 to make a site booking. You will
need the following information:
•
Date(s) of proposed visit(s)
•
Time of proposed visit – Please note opening hours!
•
Name and contact details of school or group
•
Number of students and leaders in the group
•
Age or Key stage of the students
•
Reason for your visit
•
Any special requirements e.g. disabled access
•
Visit the site to complete a full risk-assessment relevant to your class. Guidance
can be found in this pack. Refer to the LEA’s Educational Visits Health and Safety
Handbook available in all schools.
•
If you would like help with planning your visit, please contact the Education team on
01924 305902
Before the visit: classroom activities
•
Ensure children arrive on site ready to collect detailed sense impressions of the
present remains and surroundings. You might practise using the senses sheet (see
resources section) in the school environment before you come to Sandal.
•
Find out what an archaeologist does? What does they find and how do they and
others use their finds? Use, for example, the handbag/dustbin game; see the English
Heritage gem, A Teacher’s Guide to Learning from Objects (see resources section) for
more ideas.
•
And/or organise a visit from the West Yorkshire Archaeology Service (see resources
section), which offers free activities to schools.
Learning and Access Team 2005
During Your Visit
Resources Available on site:
•
•
•
•
•
Exhibition displays
Handling collections*
Laminated images of the castle*
Laminated instruction cards*
Pencils*
* Please note that these must be booked in advance
Other possible similar writing activities that can be carried out on site:
1. Battle of Wakefield
Collect sense impressions of the view over battle site now:
Now there is ……
then work from artefacts, artist’s reconstructions (battlefield and castle) and text
to create the first verse:
Once there was ….
Helpful pamphlet: The Battle of Wakefield Dockray and Knowles, WMDC
1999
2. Who am I?
Choose a castle-dweller with a particular job or function. Evidence is available in
the visitors’ centre display, books, libraries, or on the internet. Carry out your
research, and gather information on a sense impressions sheet.
Imagine you are this person and write their sense impressions of castle life in
the first person:
An example is on the following page.
Learning and Access Team 2005
Who am I?
Model:
Cook at Sandal Castle
POEM FRAME
(title – substitute chosen occupation/function …)
Each day
(use this opening …)
I smell hot bitter smoke, wood burning
(choose three senses – 2/3 lines each …)
rich venison roasting – not for mefresh bread baking
I feel my sweat trickling down my back
under my rough wool jerkin
stained dark with grease
I hear my own harsh voice
shouting when the fires burn low
raging when the water’s spilt
screeching when the spit’s not turned
and the venison’s burned
I’m burned up by fire, roasted by my anger
(now one idea or thought or feeling …)
3. Castle Challenge Sheet
Use the Castle Challenge worksheet to look at evidence or images and think about
questions to answer. Use the evidence in the Visitor Centre, or information found
through books or the internet to find out the answers back at school.
The worksheet can be found in the resources section.
4. Asking Questions - 5 W’s + How
Use the 5 What? When? Where? Why? Who? And How? Sheet to highlight questions
you would like answering (Thanks to Wendy North, Advisory Teacher, Primary
Humanities, WEAS, for these ideas). The aim of this sheet is not to initially answer the
questions but to inspire curiosity in the student which can then be used on site. The
answers can then be found using a variety of sources, including asking the staff!
An example of this sheet can be seen on the following page, completed by a Year 4
student.
Learning and Access Team 2005
SAMPLE (with thanks to Nathan, Y4.)
Asking Questions - 5 W’s + How
Look at this image carefully. Discuss it with a talking partner. Fill in
some really good questions that you’d like answers to. Later, in class
discussion, you may get some answers, or at least some opinions, or
you may have to do some more research. (Not all questions have
answers!)
What?
What fish are they trying to catch?
What is the bucket for?
When?
When do they do this?
(Every day? Just in the
summer? For fun? For food?)
Where?
Where in Sandal Castle did this happen?
(I think it’s the moat, but it doesn’t look
quite right.)
Why?
Why have these men got scarves tied over
their faces?
Who?
Who drew this picture? Was he there?
Who are these people? Are
they the rich men or the
servants?
How?
How did the lower down man get there?
Learning and Access Team 2005
These sheets are for genuine questions, which other
members of the class may be able to answer, or may have
opinions about. The important thing is that children shall
feel safe and confident to ask the things they really want
to know, thus revealing all kinds of interesting assumptions
we’d never be able to engage with otherwise. Nathan enjoys
fishing and immediately interpreted the net in the obvious,
to him, sense. He was highly delighted when another
member of the group could show him the garderobe on the
site and tell him what really happened there! These are
excellent questions. Well done, Nathan!
Try other images on these sheets. Use images in any form
and get the children to write questions on a separate sheet.
Back at school …
• After the visit: activities back in school
The whole class shared poem, in its three-flipchart sheet form, can be celebrated
again back in school. The lines can be divided between individual children and small
groups for a variety of effects in performance. Sharing at assembly, with or without
projected images, works beautifully.
Children can produce individual/small group poems, in the same form, practising
control and choosing order and length of lines, uses of alliteration, onomatopoeia,
imagery, far more consciously than was possible in the limited time available at
Sandal.
More research, more detailed historical exploration, based on a wider range of more
general, as well as specific, castle resources, can feed into the new poems.
Use a selection of the resources provided in this pack – projected for discussion, or
printed on “sheets to make you think” like the samples included as Castle Challenge
and Asking Questions – 5 Ws + How to extend knowledge and understanding, and
provide more material for individual poems.
See also other possible writing activities on site section. These, too, could be
followed up, re-drafted, extended, etc.
Learning and Access Team 2005
4. Resources
All the resources and worksheets are available to download from the mylearning website.
These include:
•
Pupil worksheets – e.g. senses sheet, group instruction cards
•
Image gallery
•
Background information on the castle including:
Evidence of the Medieval “Living Castle”
Evidence of the Civil War “Dying Castle”
Interesting finds from the excavations
Chronology of the Castle
Accounts of the Civil War siege of Sandal Castle
Learning and Access Team 2005
Sandal Castle in the Middle Ages
Sandal Castle in the Middle Ages
Learning and Access Team 2005
Sandal Castle in the Middle Ages
Sandal Castle during the Civil War (17th century)
Learning and Access Team 2005
Sources of further information/material
Leaflet
Sandal Castle
Wakefield Museums and Arts
Books
Sandal Castle, Wakefield
Sandal Castle
Lawrence Butler, Wakefield Historical Publications 1991
Richard Bell, Willow Island Editions 2001
Learning from Objects Gail Durbin et al. , English Heritage 1990
The Usborne Book of Castles Lesley Sims, Usborne 2003
(This book is “internet-linked” and has useful websites which can be easily accessed.
Other castle books for younger readers contain useful artists’ impressions of castle
life.)
Inside Story: Extraordinary Buildings Unfolded Nicola Baxter, Franklin Watts
1997
(Kids love the fold-out cross-section of a Norman castle.)
Sandal Castle Excavations 1964 – 1973 Philip Mayes and Lawrence Butler 1983
Images
Sandal Castle drawn about 1560 - available from the Interpretation shop
Exhibition material and artefacts
Excellent and rich displays at the Sandal Castle Visitors’ Centre, where handling
collection may be used on site
More finds are displayed at Wakefield Museum, Wood St. (01924 305356)
The site-specific printed material mentioned above can be purchased at both these
museum sites.
People
The Visitor Centre Assistants on duty at Sandal Castle site are very knowledgeable
and helpful.
Pam Judkins, Wakefield MDC Keeper of Archaeology, is an amazing resource of
information and stories about the castle, its life, death and excavation.
Contact: Pjudkins@wakefield.gov.uk
Learning and Access Team 2005