Collaborative Narrative Writing Creating a whole class or group story

With the increased emphasis on literacy in the curriculum we are being encouraged to focus specifically on the individual writing genres, while still considering the primary writing strand units from the curriculum.

Strand Receptiveness to language

Competence and confidence in using language Developing cognitive abilities through language Emotional and imaginative development through language

Strand Unit Writing: Creating and fostering the impulse to write Writing:

Developing competence, confidence and the ability to write independently

Writing:

Clarifying thought through writing

Writing:

Developing emotional and imaginative life through writing







As Waterford prepares to host Ireland’s biggest Christmas festival we invite you to submit a narrative story written collaboratively by a 3rd, 4th, 5th or 6th class group in your school. This story is to be based in Waterford in Viking times In order to form a connection between the entries we ask that you would use this trunk as a story prompt.

We hope to help you with this by offering a complete revision or teaching unit for the narrative genre. If your group are already very familiar with the elements of story writing we would encourage you to click here to skip to some information about life in Viking Waterford.

Parts of a Story Although there are different types of fiction stories they all have the same three elements.

• Characters

• Setting

• A Plot

Characters When you are thinking about a character you could use the following ideas. • Try thinking of interesting or unusual people. • Use pictures (from your text books, magazines, the accompanying resources, the internet or other places) to give you ideas.

Once you have an idea you should build on it by… • Deciding on a name. • Think of a few details to describe your character (clothing, hairstyle, expression, etc.). • Decide how your character is feeling.

How do we this in our collaborative story?

Creating Your Characters What do your characters look like? • Use details to suggest what a character is like, e.g. Aoife paused and looked in the glass, she had often been told that she had he mother’s hair and her father’s temper. • Describe them by using a list, e.g. The Chief was a portly man with a shock of white hair and a distinctive hooked nose. • Use well chosen adjectives and similes, e.g. His loud roar was like a waking dragon. • Mention a distinctive feature, e.g. He walked with a slight limp which he tried to disguise.

Getting to Know Your Characters Using hot seating or teacher in role here allows the character development to be a whole class activity, make notes as you go along. Also please see next slide for some examples of work done by a 5th and 6th class, where they traced around one student and researched the characers in preperation for this actic • How old are they? • What are they interested in? • Do they have anything they really dislike? • Have they a special talent? • Do they have a secret? • What are they afraid of? • What is their biggest wish?

King John and Field Marshall Roberts

How Would Your Character Speak? Show how they feel through what they say but remember that this is a historical narrative and language would have been a little different! • Reflect their personality/feelings, e.g. ‘you will never take our city!’ • Use expressions, powerful verbs and adverbs e.g. “There! Now you look like a real Viking,” he laughed, placing his own helmet on the little boys head • Add in a supporting action e.g. ‘We need help!’ Regnall shouted, bursting through the door. • Avoid a string of dialogue.

How Would Your Character Speak? Show how they feel by what they do. • Reflect the character’s feelings, e.g. In the cold dark tower he whispered ‘goodnight’ and heard nothing. • Make sure different characters behave in different ways. • Use powerful verbs and adverbs, especially for movement (amble, shuffle, dash) and looking (peer, glance, stare, glare).

Create your own Viking Character by tracing a class member • Add accurate detailing. • Allow each student write one sentence on a post-it note describing the character’s appearance, mannerisms, and personality. • Read them out and build a character description using the most appropriate.

Teacher in Role or Hot Seating Using the character profile you have created together, learn more about your Character(s) by questioning!

Create an A – Z Create an A-Z chart of describing words for your viking character.

Setting When you are thinking about a setting, read about life in Viking Waterford to give you some context Once you have an idea you should try to… • Picture it :use labelled photos and pictures to help you • Draw it: Draw a landscape or map of your story setting • Sense it: Close your eyes and imagine the setting. What can you hear, smell, see and feel? • Film it: Imagine you are looking through a camera from different angles at your setting • Now you should write it!

How to Create Your Setting • Your story must be set in Waterford, look at Waterford in your atlas or check out the maps in the accompanying resources, try to make your observations as accurate as possible • Think about details like the time of day and the weather. • Show the setting through the main character’s eyes e.g. Olaf could see hear a rumbling in the distance, it seemed to be getting closer, what could it be? • Use unexpected detail as a ‘hook’ e.g. As they approached the village they could see the smoke rising, they thought it was from the dwellings but all of a sudden they saw the flames leaping high up into the sky. • Change the setting to create atmosphere e.g. the path grew darker……

Tips for Creating Your Setting Have you used...? • Powerful verbs and adjectives e.g. stars speckled in the night sky as the boat glided towards the shore • Similies e.g. like a spinning sun, the burning wheel, rolled towards the river • Metaphors

e.g. the wall’s backbone stretched around the city of Waterford

• Personification • Lists?

e.g. The river swallowed the boat hungrily

e.g. The home was constructed from bracken, dried leaves, mud and moss.

Plot Get ideas for creating story plots. You might get ideas from… • Stories you have read or heard • Things that you know from history. • A detail in the presentation. • Some of the pictures. • A story you have read or a movie that you have seen. Your story is like a recipe that must be blended together. Let’s look at the ingredients!

Plot When you’ve got your ingredients it’s time to plan your story!

Main Character Where is he/she? What is he/she doing? What is going to go wrong? How will it be sorted out? How will it end?

Story Planning Before you plan your story, it can be helpful to have a motivation for your writing. Here are some suggestions: • Overcoming a problem

• Disaster

• Challenge or quest

• Fantasy

• Battle or conquest

• Based on one specific event in the history of Waterford, eg a siege

• Warning • Character flaw • Lost/found • Mystery • Significant event

• Changing (sad – happy, poor – rich, weak over strong, good over evil

How to Plan Jotting down ideas can help you plan your story. Your plot should be simple and drive towards the ends. Here are some ideas to help with your story planning. • Flowchart: for planning a play or a story that has a set number of scenes/paragraphs. • Timelines: good for planning in chronological order. • Storyboards: helps you to visualise each scene. • Story picture maps: good for creating the setting and plot together in a visual way. • Story mountain: Use a story mountain to build excitement and interest into your storyline. You probably have your own tried and tested method but his has worked well with a number of schools in the past!

Story Mountain This is a good method if you want to build excitement or interest into your storyline. A good plot should have moments of suspense or crisis and characters should be faced with problems or challenges.

Simple Story Mountain This is one you could draw on a scrap piece of paper and add to and change as you go on.

we emerged into the middle of a settlement.

It was late and there was nobody around.

The local Vikings were eyeing us suspiciously

Story Mountain This story mountain has five elements that you can use as a framework to build onto.

Use these ideas to help you plan and write your story!

Collaborative Editing Time Once you’re group has written your story you can use these lists to check it. Has anybody got any suggestions for things that we can improve. • Used your plan to help you write your story? • Made changes to add to your original idea? • Controlled the dialogue (is there too much)? • Balanced the dialogue, action and description? • Made the story well paced (are any parts rushed)? • Used the setting to create different atmospheres? • Shown what the main character is like by what they say and do? • Written an ending that shows how the main character feels or what has been learned? • Considered everybody’s ideas and worked together as a writing team

Check Your Language

Have you…… • Stayed in the same tense? • Stayed in the same person? (e.g. I or he/she) • Used connectives to link ideas, sentences and paragraphs?

1088 First mention of Reginald’s tower in the annals

Life in Viking Waterford Life for the Viking Age inhabitants of Waterford was short with most dying before they reached the age of forty. Houses were made of wattle (poles with reed intertwined) with a timber frame to support the thatch roof. In the middle of each house was an open hearth, used for cooking and to provide heat; the smoke escaped through a hole in the roof. Some houses had insulation by having a double set of walls which they filled in between with bracken (ferns), dried leaves and moss. Viking inhabitants were skilled craftsmen and objects such as tableware, gaming boards, musical instruments and jewellery have been uncovered during

excavations in the City. The Vikings also introduced new styles which were to influence craftsmen working with stone, leather, bone, metal and parchment and they in turn were influenced by Gaelic Irish craftsmen. The Vikings played a very important role in the future development of Waterford City by establishing Ireland’s first commercial centre and port, which brought Waterford and Ireland in close contact with other European locations and which was to be central to Waterford’s economic growth over the centuries. The settlement built by the Vikings in Waterford with its great fleet of boats was highly prized by Gaelic kings who were struggling for control of their provinces or the High Kingship of Ireland.

Viking Word Search Annals Century Dundory Fort Haven Longphort Pirate Raider Regnall River Sitricus Vedrarfjord Viking York

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Some place names in the City also owe their origins to the Vikings. For example the place name Ballytruckle comes from the Viking chieftain Torcal or Turgesius and Ballygunner was the homestead of another Viking Gunnar.

situated on high ground between St John’s River, which has since been drained and is now The Mall, and the River Suir. From the tower, enemies could be seen clearly approaching the City by river.

Reginald’s Tower

It was in Reginald’s Tower that Strongbow, the leader of the Anglo Normans, met Aoife the daughter of Diarmait MacMurchada, the King of Leinster, and where their marriage feast took place following their wedding in Christ Church Cathedral.

Reginald’s Tower is the oldest civic urban structure in Ireland and has played a central role in Ireland’s history. It is first mentioned in the Irish Annals as early as 1088. Reginald’s Tower marks the site of the first defensive structure built by the Viking settlers. The tower was named after Ragnall MacGillemaire, an Irish Viking ruler of the City who was later held prisoner in the tower when the City fell to Strongbow and the Anglo Normans in 1170.

Life in Viking Waterford

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Reginald’s Tower is strategically located and this site provided both shelter and security for the Viking invaders. When it was built it was

During its lifetime, the tower has been a prison, a royal castle, a mint for making money, a store for guns and a home for the Chief Constable of Waterford. In the 1950s the tower was opened to the public for the first time. Reginald’s Tower has been in continuous use for over 800 years and is now a museum which houses Waterford’s Viking collection of artefacts.

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1171

King Henry lands in Waterford

The Coming of The Normans Diarmait MacMurchada was a great enemy of Waterford. He attacked the City in 1137 but failed to capture it. He was expelled from Ireland for fighting with other Irish kings for the High Kingship of Ireland. Diarmait went to England to look for help. Richard de Clare, Earl of Pembroke also known as Strongbow, agreed to help but he wanted some of the Irish land in return. If Strongbow married Diarmait’s daughter Aoife, he would be the heir to the Kingdom of Leinster. In 1169, a group of Anglo Norman mercenaries (paid soldiers) landed in Wexford at the invitation of Diarmait MacMurchada and by 1170 they were at the walls of Waterford with an army of 1,100 soldiers. After a bloody battle Strongbow and his armour clad Anglo Norman supporters captured the City and the Vikings were expelled from the City, settling in the western suburbs of the City. The arrival of the Normans brought about a dramatic change for the City.

King Henry II of England feared that Strongbow and other Normans were becoming too powerful so he decided to visit Ireland himself and take control. He landed in Waterford on October 18th 1171 with 400 ships, 500 knights and 4,000 foot soldiers. This was the first time an English king had set foot in an Irish City. Strongbow and the other Norman Lords swore to be loyal to him. Henry II recognised Strongbow as MacMurchada’s heir to Leinster but the King retained control over the strategically important port cities of Waterford and Dublin. Henry elevated Waterford to the status of Royal City which owed its loyalty to the Anglo Norman King of England Henry II, a status that was to change the course of the City’s history dramatically.

King John and the Medieval City

The marriage of Strongbow and Aoife

The Marriage of Strongbow and Aoife Under Brehon Law, the old Irish Law of the time, Aoife could not be forced into the arranged marriage. Luckily for her father Aoife did fall in love with Strongbow. Strongbow and Aoife were married in Christ Church Cathedral on 25th August 1170. The marriage of Strongbow and Aoife marked the end of the Viking Age in Irish history and the beginning of English involvement in Irish affairs.

Some years later King Henry II decided to send his son John to rule Ireland and gave him the title Lord of Ireland. On April 1st 1185, 18 year old Prince John arrived in Waterford. During his time in Waterford he ordered the re-fortification of the old Viking walls and the construction of the ground and first floor of the present Reginald’s Tower were begun at this time. This investment in the City’s defences shows how important Waterford was to England at this time. John also gave land to the St John’s Benedictine Priory, the ruins of which are still visible on Manor Street. During Anglo Norman times a circuit of walls with fifteen gates and twenty towers were built. Over the centuries many of these were taken down but a number of towers still remain, the most impressive being Reginald’s Tower. Other remnants of the city walls include the Beach Tower, St Martin’s Gate, Watch Tower, Double Tower, French Tower and Semi Lunar Tower.

During his time in Waterford John enjoyed too much wine and fresh Irish salmon and became ill and thinking that he had caught leprosy he promised God that he would build a leper hospital if he lived. John did live and a leper hospital was built in Waterford, dedicated to St Stephen. During John’s first visit to Waterford he also insulted the Irish Chiefs and Norman Lords and indulged in extravagant living and after only eight months in Ireland, King Henry recalled John to England.

Did you know? The earliest coin found to date in Waterford is a silver halfpenny of John as Lord of Ireland, before he became King that dates to about 1190. This type of coin was made in the mint (a place where coins are made) in Waterford.