Teachers are using the revamped and redesigned Tom Weekly book series as short story readalouds in the classroom and also as a way to inspire kids to create their own semi-autobiographical short stories. Each Tom Weekly story begins with something personal to me and evolves into a funny fictional action-adventure, but there’s always a vein of truth running through the story. This is a great method for getting students to mash fact and fiction and to write honestly about their lives.
The brand new Tom Weekly teacher resource kit is full of fun storystarters and behind-the-scenes tips on the writing process. It’s formatted with Gus Gordon’s brilliant illustrations for easy projection in the classroom and it’ll have kids dreaming up their own wild-but-somewhat-true adventures to make their friends, families and teachers laugh, cry and, possibly, gag.
To download the resources, head over to:
https://www.penguin.com.au/content/resources/TR_TomWeekly.pdf
And let me know how you get on. (Just click contact at the top of this page and hit the email symbol. Or let me know on socials.) I hope it results in more believable, honest stories, still riddled with the fun and unexpected ideas that young writers are known for.
