Margaret Bateson-Hill - AIM High Writing
Margaret Bateson-Hill
AIM High Writing
Summary
Age range - Primary
Books - Ages 8 - 12
DBS Checked Yes - Enhanced- Registered for the Update Service
Booking
Contact
+44 (0)1535 656015
aimhigh@caboodlebooks.co.uk
Margaret Bateson-Hill is both an author and a storyteller.
About Margaret
Margaret grew up in Blackpool, and studied English and Drama at Hull University. Margaret now lives in the South of England.
Margaret has published both picture and fiction books. Her books have been translated into many languages, including French, Italian, Spanish, Dutch, Danish, Catalan, Korean and Polish.
Margaret has worked as a storyteller for over 30 years telling stories in schools, museums and libraries, including Buckingham Palace, Kensington Palace, the V&A, the British Museum, the Foundling Museum and Apsley House and the Horniman Museum.
Margaret is an experienced creative workshop leader in schools and after school clubs from Brixton to Beijing.
She is one of the CWISL(Children’s Writers and Illustrators for Reading and Literacy) tutors for the creative writing festivals, ShoutSouth, ShoutWest! and the one day MiniShout!
As Patron of Reading at Cypress Primary she ran regular class writing sessions and afterschool book making projects
She is author in residence at Christ Church Primary Battersea, and every summer term (including during the Covid 19 pandemic ) she publishes a book of children stories and illustrations based on the school’s garden.
Margaret’s AIM High Writing Day
Margaret’s AIM High day is based upon the fabulous first book of the Dragon Racer trilogy: First Flight, and is suitable for Key Stage 2 children
Aims
- To become more confident in writing.
- To help children discover their own writing “voice”
- To understand writing can be a messy affair of thinking, drafting, redrafting, editing - something we need to work at.
Objectives:
- Show, don’t tell
- To write a scene showing not just a visual description of a dragon, but the mood and emotion of the scene.
- To use the five senses to create an effective piece of writing
Session 1: Hatching the ideas
The first hour is spent modelling ideas and vocabulary.
Start with the poem: You say you don’t believe in dragons
This poem describes a dragon using all senses. It has a wide range of vocabulary and models a simple structure of a poem using a repeated question between the stanzas.
This exercise sets the theme, the tone, feeds in vocabulary and reinforces listening skills and concentration
Margaret introduces herself and her books and how she came to write about dragons. Margaret story tells the end of her folk tale, Lao Lao of Dragon Mountain and talks about how she got the ideas for the story, Margaret then introduces the idea of editing the story through showing children her homemade book and talk about changes that were made.
The First Flight book is introduced by telling children how the idea came about by discovering Margaret’s secret self - she flies racing dragons! Children are asked what their secret self could be; suggestions, time travellers, spy with gadgets, superpowers, owners of magical objects etc.
The group reads the first few pages of the book where Joanna meets the dragon for the first time. This is followed by interactive Q and A with some drama role-play .
Break time
Session 2: It’s a …dragon Create a dragon fact file using the five senses.
Physical attributes
Needs and fears
What does it want?
Draw its picture
Using their fact file children write a descriptive dragon poem.
Lunch time
Session 3: The day I met a dragon
(Show, don’t tell)
Action! Plotting the story includes setting the scene when the children meet their dragons, how each character reacts, how to make the scenes come alive with character and emotion, what happens and how the scene/story is resolved.
Children will also focus on key factors such as whose POV the story uses, using first or third person, short or long sentences and looking at verbs.
Everyone continues to develop their characters and scene and if the children are comfortable, they can read their scenes aloud revealing their dragons to the world!
How The Day Links to KS2 National Curriculum
articulate and justify answers, arguments and opinions
give well-structured descriptions, explanations and narratives for different purposes, including for expressing feelings
maintain attention and participate actively in collaborative conversations, staying on topic and initiating and responding to comments
assessing the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing
selecting appropriate grammar and vocabulary, understanding how such choices can change and enhance meaning
in narratives, describing settings, characters and atmosphere and integrating dialogue to convey character and advance the action
proposing changes to vocabulary, grammar and punctuation to enhance effects and clarify meaning
noting and developing initial ideas, drawing on reading and research where necessary
selecting the appropriate form and using other similar writing as models for their own
considering how authors have developed characters and settings in what pupils have read, listened to or seen performed
Margaret’s Dragon Literacy Workshop
KS1 and KS2
This workshop is perfect for children that may lack confidence or are more reluctant. Margaret will work closely to provide support and inspiration to everyone!
Margaret uses dragons as the writing theme as she has noticed that everyone always has something to say about a dragon!
Lots of ideas using storytelling, poems, interactive conversation and simple drama are shared and the group will then use a dragon fact file template and illustration to create a dragon character
Aims of the day for KS1:
To develop positive attitudes towards and stamina for writing by:
writing narratives about personal experiences and those of others (real and fictional)
writing poetry
planning or saying out loud what they are going to write about
writing down ideas and/or key words, including new vocabulary
make simple additions, revisions and corrections to their own writing by:
evaluating their writing with the teacher and other pupils
re-reading to check that their writing makes sense
read aloud what they have written with appropriate intonation to make the meaning clear.
AIMS of the day for KS2
Spoken Language
articulate and justify answers, arguments and opinions
give well-structured descriptions, explanations and narratives for different purposes, including for expressing feelings
maintain attention and participate actively in collaborative conversations, staying on topic and initiating and responding to comments
Writing-Composition
noting and developing initial ideas, drawing on reading and research where necessary
in writing narratives, considering how authors have developed characters and settings in what pupils have read, listened to or seen performed
selecting appropriate grammar and vocabulary, understanding how such choices can change and enhance meaning
in narratives, describing settings, characters and atmosphere and integrating dialogue to convey character and advance the action
assessing the effectiveness of their own and others’ writing
proposing changes to vocabulary, grammar and punctuation to enhance effects and clarify meaning
A Selection of Margaret’s Books
This book follows the story of a girl named Joanna and her best friend who happens to be a dragon called Flying Excelsior. Joanna’s normal mundane life of household chores and doing her homework gets turned on its head when, she becomes the youngest dragon flyer in the country. Along with the glamour and the glory, comes envy from her competitors eager to see her fail. Terrible danger ensues and she will need all of her skills and a great deal of help from her best friend to survive. An out of this world-exciting story about friendship and loyalty. If you enjoyed Salamanda Drake's debut Dragonsdale, then you'll love this.
Joanna is the new owner of the Brixton Dragon Caves. What could be better? But Arch-rival Marius King has been plotting revenge on the dragon-racing world from prison and he's ready to unleash his plan. Joanna must put aside her differences with the rest of the team if she wants to save her beloved Excelsior...
Fiesty hero Joanna leads a diverse cast in this wonderful adventure - action divided between the Brixton caves in London, Brighton and Wales.
World champions Joanna and her racing dragon Excelsior are at the top of their game and the dragon-racing world is looking to a bright future after the frightening events of last year. But strange and troubling things start happening. Joanna can sense dragons in pain, dragons being hidden away, dragons with dark secrets . . . Uncovering the truth will put Jo and Excelsior in danger of their lives can they fight to survive?
Bookings
To book Margaret please contact us now at aimhigh@caboodlebooks.co.uk