Summer Writing Institute at NUI Maynooth-Day 2

Day one in the SwIFt writing institute was excellent and I thought that day two could not, should not top it but it seems we have an endless supply of innovative teachers who write and want to help their students writer better.
First up, we had Ann Ryan, a drama teaching fan, she brought us through short films and creative writing using freeze framing and camera angles to show how writers portray mood. We watched a moving and dark film called The White Dress, available on the Irish Film Board website along with many others,
Finian from the COI college spoke about joint narrative and brought us on a journey where we all contributed to a live story based on things we had seen that morning, will definitely use this with my students.
He also spoke about our literacy history, what background, hates, likes, fears and personal history as a writer, reader and talker do we bring to our classroom?
We then had a hilarious role play of a writing group and we put together some suggestions for a new writing group which will run on Day Four. I found this very useful especially for ideas for my own group.
Last up, we had the most passionate and brilliant educators I had seen! Donna and Patricia are second level teachers and I must admit I have been biased about this sector. I detest the format of the leaving cert as a learning, teaching and assessment tool. But, these ladies showed us how they get around those evil exam questions and curriculum. They use music videos and video gaming to teach short story structure and setting. They ended the day perfectly, I drove home buzzing, listening to “Titanium”, one of the music videos that showed us to teach the short story form.
Cannot wait for Day Three!