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The FRRR Project
A report by Paul Stafford, project manager
The FRRR-funded small schools literacy project (whose project title FaRRRout! combined the Foundation’s acronym with the regional isolation of the schools involved and the fun/crazy nature of their students’ writing) took place in Term 3 & 4 of 2005.
The schools involved were all small, regionally isolated schools in Central West NSW - Corinella Public, Caragabal Public, Bedgerebong Public and Eugowra Public schools. Each has less than 100 students and access to projects such as that funded by FRRR Rural Education Fund is extremely limited, bordering on impossible.
The FaRRRout! project was a web-based literacy initiative that involved four schools hosting three days (per school) of face-to-face writing workshops with Bathurst-based children’s author Paul Stafford. These workshops introduced the students to such basic fundamentals of writing as brainstorming ideas, developing plot, establishing conflict, fleshing out character, and plot resolution. While the main focus was on writing narratives, attention was also paid to redrafting, description, developing storyboards from narratives, and on the final day of workshops a drama script written by the combined group.
During each workshop mentor/author Paul Stafford created a story scaffold for the class - based on the students’ ideas and input - and the students wrote their own stories based on this model. Completed work was emailed to Paul, edited on-line through real-time web-board editing and emailing between school & author, and - when the student satisfied with the completed product - posted on-line, on a dedicated web-site. The web-site was constructed by Bathurst-based children’s book illustrator Shane Summerton, and the students’ material illustrated by him for the site.
This completed website can be viewed by logging on to www.pantsonfire.com.au and following the links to FaRRRout!
The project was lauded by the schools involved not just for their opportunity to work face-to-face with a published author. It also gave students an insight into the possibilities of working with web-based technologies (particularly where regional isolation is an issue), the vocation possibilities of writing and illustrating, and the many outcomes achievable through working together as a team. This final valuable lesson was reinforced on the 3rd day of workshops when each of the schools worked together as a team to create a single drama script to be performed by students as a school play for their parents at end of year presentation.