France: the Ligue de l'enseignement organises creative writing workshops

In the small town of Cousance, located in the south of the Jura, the Ligue de l'enseignement du Jura ran a writing workshop based on a simple principle: to do a collective work that would not put in difficulty the children who are least at ease with writing. 

Children formed 6 groups and each group chose a picture. First, the children "collected" on post-its the three words that the pictures inspired in them, and stuck them on the back of the photographs. Then they exchanged their picture with another group. They repeated the same exercise with another picture. At the end, the groups had worked on 3 different pictures.

During the second phase of the workshop, each group was given a picture on which he had not worked. This time, the educator gave a collection of words to the children and ask them to compose simple sentences using them as much as possible. They also could use some "catchphrases" such as: "How I would like it if...", "It seems to me that...", "What a pity that...", "I can't wait for...", "I can never...", "I don't want that anymore...

Once the sentences were written, they were transmitted to another group. The mission of the other group was to improve the sentences (shorten them, remove repetitions, insert action verbs, etc.) and choose the ones they liked best.

Finally, the sentences changed tables one last time, and the children, standing around each of the 6 tables, recited their sentences in sequence, giving rise to a choir of poetic expression and solidarity, gathered around the photograph concerned.