Creative writing - Putting pen to paper, presentation by Kerstin Liebchen at AFMLTA conference in Sydney 2009

1. 9-12 July 2009, Sydney:
Kerstin Liebchen
Head of German, St Aidan‘s AGS, Brisbane
k.liebchen@staidan.qld.edu.au

2. • summary of a selection of creative writing
ideas and how they work
• instructions for creative writing ideas
• presentation of student samples from
St Aidan‘s Anglican Girls‘ School
• presentation of grammar reinforcement
through the use of creative writing
activities

3. • the shortness of writing activities
• a creative approach as the central idea
• writing pieces which are centred on the
writer – the “I“
• a writing persepective which is also first
person singular
• aim: to reduce fear of writing in a LOTE
and
increase joy of writing and curiosity

4. a monogram is the first letter of your name
Instructions:
• write big hollow letters of your first and last name
on the board
• ideas for words that start with the same letter as the
ones you have written on the board are
collated and written within the big hollow letters
• now hand out coloured A4 sheets of paper and get the
students to do the same with their initials
• the students highlight two of the words in each
of their letters and then let their neighbours
highlight another two each
• these eight words are now be used to write
a made up story for home work
(“ EigenSinn“ ; U. Liebnau, page 12)

5. Instructions:
Every student receives a piece of paper, folding technique
is demonstrated by the teacher
1. First round: every student invents a female
character of their gossip story:
name, age, and up to three characteristics.
The teacher scaffolds this by reading out
the sentence in the LOTE or writing on the board
2. The part of the paper on which the information
has been written is now folded to the back
so the person to whom the paper is
handed can not read the text
3. Each student hands their paper to the person
on their left.

6. 4. Second round: every student invents a male
character: name, age, and up to three
characteristics.
5. Paper is folded and passed on to student on the left
6. Third round: Where do they meet?
eg. in the department store, at the playground…
(folding, passing …)
7. Fourth round: What does she say to him?
(folding, passing…)
8. Fifth round: What does he say to her?
(folding, passing…)
9. Sixth round: What happens next?
(folding, passing…)
10. after the last passing on of the paper the gossip
stories are read aloud (EigenSinn“ ; U. Liebnau, page 15)

7. Reincarnation and the subjunctive
Instructions:
• this scaffolding text could be used
to get students started (in the respective LOTE):
If I were to be reincarnated coming back to earth,
I would be a drink. I would be a bubbly drink.
The name of the drink would be “Raspberry- Lemonade.
I would be in a groovy bottle and lots of bubbles
would dance in my bottle. I would have a colourful label
and everyone would buy me.
• possible types of reincarnated objects or beings:
animals, plants, food, means of transport,
furniture items etc.
(“ EigenSinn“ ; U. Liebnau, page 17)

8. Instructions:
• the teacher chooses one or two words – nouns –
and ‘draws’ the word in its meaning on the board
• coloured paper is distributed and students choose
their own word which they present as a picture
e.g. apple, water, bottle, castle, shoe, elephant,
chaos …
(“ EigenSinn“ ; U. Liebnau, page 27)

10. Instructions:
This type of poem consists of 7 lines
and a set number of words per line:
first line - 1 word
second line - 2 words,
third line - 3 words
fourth line - 4 words
and then the words are reduced again
from the fifth line onwards,
fifth line - 3 words
sixth: 2 words
and in the seventh line the poem concludes with one

11. • heading: place
• 1st line : seeing
• 2nd line : listening
• 3rd line: smelling
• 4th line: tasting
• 5th line: feeling, touching

12. What a shame! What luck!
• listing what things and/or feelings might be a shame
•using a particular grammatical structure:
What a shame that…
• finishing the poem with the opposite:
But what luck that…

14. • Stimulus used: VODCAST
Diner en blanc.mp4
Bonjour_ Berlin.mp4
• Stimulus used: PODCAST
Armut Clip G8 .mp3
•Stimulus used: MUSIC
Klassische Musik.mp3

15. • „EigenSinn“ by Ulrich Liebnau ,
• Wolfgang Menzel, Schreiben 2, Wolfgang
Menzel,
• Schreiben 3, Kurt Klimperle, Schreiben 5
• Kurt Klimperle, Schreiben 6 ,
• Szene Magazine publication, published by
the AGTV in cooperation with the Network of
Australian Teachers of German