It is understandable then that teachers, myself included, want to capture this energy in some form of writing sample to show what this child is capable of when they are writing about something that is important to them. Unfortunately I have found that many of these samples are either two sentences long, after prompting, or drag on and on without providing any descriptions and using lots of phrases such as "and then..." and "we went..." I have watched the energy, excitement, enthusiasm drain from their bodies with each new word and decided that this term I would do something different.
After lots of consideration, I decided that the value was in the energy and excitement which went along with the sharing of what they had done and not in the control over how they shared it.
And so this term began like each before it: "I can tell that you all want to share what you have done on your holidays, so today we are going to create a holiday recount." as they had done the terms, semesters and years before, the students started to frown and knew exactly what is coming up. Only this time it was different, this time they were given a 1 hour challenge to share their holiday adventures with the class but they were not allowed to write about them. A few words or a sentence to explain what they had created was okay but no paragraphs and no stories. Suggestions were not made other than to point them towards areas within our classroom such as the art corner, laptop trolley.
After 5 minutes of mandatory planning time when students could consider tools, mediums, events, etc. they began TO CREATE. Students built models of buildings from movies they watched or places they went, made comic strips of events, told stories through digital tools such as PowToon, created images using paint, water colours, crayons or Google SketchUP.
The most amazing thing to see at the end of the hour was not what they had managed to create in that time but that they had sustained their energy and excitement throughout.