The students began a unit called "One World, Many Stories" where they rotated through classrooms to learn about stories in different ways, such as drawing a story based on pictures or acting out a play. They listened to stories written by an author-in-residence and shared their favorite books. They learned that stories can be told orally or through different media. The students met the author and listened to her read one of her stories. They are drafting stories about special people in their lives and will edit and publish them.

1. Week 1 We began our new unit of worked called ONE WORLD , MANY STORIES. The junior school classes rotated around all 6 classrooms. In each classroom we took part in a different activity about stories. Mrs Trinh Showed us that stories can be told through pictures. We had to look at the first and last picture and then draw what happened in between.

2. Miss Ialuna taught us about readers’ theatre. We enjoyed acting out the roles in the play. We recorded our play on the flip camera. It is very funny to watch ourselves back on the interactive whiteboard.

3. Miss Fleming introduced us to 3 stories written by our Author in Residence, Corinne Fenton. We loved listening to “Flame Stands Waiting”, “The Dog on the Tuckerbox” and “Queenie”.

4. We had to take our favourite books to Mrs Hamblin and Miss Fitzgerald’s classroom. We shared our books and then completed a booklet about why we chose it as our favourite book.

5. In Miss Parker’s class we learnt that stories can be told orally, just by a person telling the story. They don’t always have to be read from a book. Long ago, this was the way that stories were passed down from parents and grandparents to their children. In some countries where they don’t have many books this is still the way that stories are passed on.

6. Mrs Moy read stories from different cultures. We looked at an Aboriginal dreamtime story, a Traditional Chinese story and a Bible story about Noah’s Ark. We learnt that stories can be funny We can learn about other countries through stories. Stories can teach us lessons We can learn about the past from stories. Stories can be read, listened to, seen on a screen or acted out. Even dance can tell a story!

8. Corinne Fenton visited St Clement of Rome school in July 2011. She showed us some of her books that she had written.

9. We had to vote on which story she would read to us. The choices were “Queenie”, “The Dog on the Tuckerbox” and “Flame Stands Waiting.” We listened to “Queenie”.

10. Corinne Fenton is the author of these books.

11. At the end of the session, Corinne answered some questions. Andrew asked, ”What is your favourite word?” Corinne answered, ”Whispered.”

12. We felt happy when she read us a book. We felt sad when Corinne had to leave. We wonder what we will do when she returns?

13. In week 3 we began an author study about Pamela Allen. We read three books written by Pamella Allen and we compared them

15. Mila’s mum, Dani, came to teach us how to sketch like Pamela Allen. She showed us how to shade using cross hatching and then she showed us how to make things have a 3-D effect and texture by gradually shading with crayons. We are going to make a tree like Mr McGee. Our first session with our Artist in Residence...

16. We looked at the style of shading that Pamela Allen uses often in her illustrations and tried out those techniques.

17. We really listened to her and then tried out her ideas. Wow...who knew we were so skilful!

18. Together we read a book written by our author in residence, Corinne Fenton, called, “Flame Stands Waiting.” It was a beautiful story about a carousel horse, a girl named Clara and wanting something enough to make it real.

19. We each drew a picture of the main character-Clara , and then on the page underneath we wrote words to describe how she is feeling....... What interesting Open Minded Portraits we created!

21. Common Character Traits In another literacy activity, we had to read these character traits and highlight the ones that we thought described our special person. adventurous friendly proud awesome fun-loving pretty artistic gentle protective athletic generous quiet active grumpy rich beautiful happy respectful brave hideous sad bold humble sloppy bossy hostile serious caring honest successful charming intelligent shy cheerful independent short curious inventive smart creative a leader studious courageous lazy selfish considerate messy simple cunning mischievous tall daring mean timid a dreamer neat trustworthy dangerous nervous thoughtful exciting nasty unselfish entertaining nice warm energetic nosy witty ferocious open wild funny persistent wise a fighter poor wonderful

22. In our art session with Dani, we learnt more about sketching and shading, lighter and dark. We made some leaves and added them to Mr McGee’s tree. This week’s session with our Artist in Residence...

23. The author Corinne Fenton visited us again for a second visit. She spoke to us about how we felt about the special person in our lives that we are going to write about.

24. We listened to music and were encouraged to draw or write how it made us feel.

25. Character Study As part of our reading rotations we completed character webs about a favourite character from a Pamela Allen book We compared character traits on worksheets as well as filling out templates on the computer. We are getting very good at saving documents into our own folders on the computer.

26. This week’s session with our Artist in Residence... We learnt another technique using crayons and scratching to colour our mice. First we coloured in our mice in a light colour; then we went over it in either black or brown.

27. This week’s session with our Artist in Residence... Then we used our very sharp grey lead pencils to scratch over the top.

28. This week’s session with our Artist in Residence... Then we scattered our mice on Mr McGee’s tree and all through the room. Be careful, you don’t know where you'll find one! Can you see Black Dog in the tree?

29. This week, we looked at some picture story books and we chose some good story starters. The story starter is the opening sentence. Story starters are like hooks to get you interested in the story – questions might pop into your head and you want to read the book. We thought about what story starters we could use in our own stories.

30. We looked at a book called “Clancy and Millie and the Very Fine House.” After listening to the story a few times we had to go on to PowerPoint and retell the story in our own words. We had to fill in the blank spaces on the PowerPoint in our literacy rotations.

31. This week we looked at the Black Dog book by Pamela Allen and Mila’s Mum Dani, showed us how to use pastels and crayons to blend colours on our bluebirds. The combination of pencil lines and smudging made our bluebirds look fantastic! This week’s session with our Artist in Residence...

32. We put our beautiful bluebirds up on our windows so they look like they are flying in the sky. Firstly we had to use a grey lead to draw the shading. Next we used pastels to blend colours and create our wonderful bluebirds. We think Pamela Allen would be proud of us!

33. We hunted outside for materials we might need for our collage We practised making different textures with crayon rubbings. We started thinking about the collages about our special person. We were inspired by Jeannie Baker’s books.

34. This week we used our sensational story starters to begin drafting our special person stories. We are trying very hard to be creative and use interesting language just like a real author. Why use boring words when there are so many wonderful words that paint a picture in the reader’s head!

35. We looked at the language in books and thought about boring ways the author could have said something, and how beautiful their words actually were...... It was like crawling into a dreamy world, where twisting plants grew tall as trees. There were tall trees in the garden. Which do you prefer?

37. Look at all these interesting words we can use!

38. Then we started making our collages to match our stories. We had to do our backgrounds first, layering all different sorts of materials onto our sheet to get a 3D effect. Then we added our people. Our collages look great, but what a mess we made!

40. Week 9 We reached the stage where we needed to check and edit our special person stories. It is always helpful to read our stories to a friend to see if we have made any mistakes. This is the checklist that we must fill out with a friend before we go to our teacher.

41. When we check it with a friend, we use a red pencil to make suggestions of corrections that are needed.

42. The next step is to read through our stories with our teacher and discuss any ways that we could improve them. Our teachers are there to make helpful suggestions. Finally when we are happy with our stories we type the up and save them in a folder ready to be sent to the publishers. Wow! We really are authors!

43. Week 9 We reached the stage where we needed to check and edit our special person stories. It is always helpful to read our stories to a friend to see if we have made any mistakes. This is the checklist that we must fill out with a friend before we go to our teacher.

44. When we check it with a friend, we use a red pencil to make suggestions of corrections that are needed.

45. The next step is to read through our stories with our teacher and discuss any ways that we could improve them. Our teachers are there to make helpful suggestions. Finally when we are happy with our stories we type the up and save them in a folder ready to be sent to the publishers. Wow! We really are authors!

46. Week 10 This week we finished our One World Many Stories unit of work. We felt like real authors as we wrote the biography piece . We had to write about ourselves so that we could include it on our story boards along with our special person stories and our collages.