The Sequencing of Space

Here Mr Jelley talks about how Storywalks skills link back to his reading and writing when he was a child (shamefully little to be honest - his words) but how moving furniture and re sequencing rooms developed skills which are key to creating a successful Storywalk (as well as creative writing!)

Confused, well don't worry, make yourself a nice hot drink and then press play, it's only ten minutes long and was recorded in Dunster Deer Park Summer 2015.

The spaces between words

Here Mr Jelley talks about how writing a Storywalk is different to other mediums even though it is fundamentally a book tied to a specific place or location. When you start writing you will find that the distance between story parts changes the flow of the narrative, something which a good Storywalker will know all about. If the spaces are too large then the story can become forgotten through distractions, this is especially true with younger children but if written correctly then the Story and location based tasks can draw the pupils back in to help keep them engaged.

Have a listen to how Mr Jelley talks about it, and what he does to keep pupils on task.

So enjoy the audio below, it's only ten minutes long, why don't you pop the kettle on and then press play?

Missing Histories for Frome Festival

This saturday we have a real treat planned, a new Storywalk trail called 'The Missing Histories' which is an opportunity for our Festival Workshop Storywalkers this Saturday to add their own mark on Frome by writing location based history.

The Storywalk engine can easily be used as a history machine, but I am always very cautious about following this thread. History, as we all know is being constantly re written and re remembered, the very phrase History - His Story suggests that the news is only one persons point of view at a certain point in time.

Recently I was delivering a workshop and one of the attendees pointed at a wall and said 'my dad built that'. It was such a refreshing thing to hear, a piece of tangible history which we can lean against and touch has a story still today, a connection with the people walking by. Then looking around at every laid stone and every paving slab I thought of their history, their story of how they came to be.

But what if we took this a little step further and added a tiny pice of history ourselves? What if we took the liberty to go just that little bit further than perhaps the Blue Badge Tour Guides would be happy with! Where would that lead, what histories would we create for future generations to read and enjoy, how far can we go and still keep on the ground?

So this Saturday, we will hopefully find out with a little bit of history in the making! Family tickets are £5, bring a lunch, and your tablet / iPad if you have one, plus a little bit of imagination to write history just too good to be true!

But in the mean time, here is a little Soundcloud of me talking about the concepts and possibilities of Missing Histories whilst walking in Dunster woods this morning.

This is the Festival Storywalks link where trails from the Gifted and Talented pupils above are posted, and our new Missing Histories will be tethered too.

Enjoy.