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superhero shorts

Superhero Shorts

Superhero Shorts is a project that was created to support children at primary school who have literacy difficulties, by helping them develop strategies to cope with learning in mainstream classrooms and to find ways to express themselves confidently and creatively. Superhero Shorts takes place during school time and uses the comic book theme of superheroesalong with drama and film to engage and inspire the participants to want to write and create  original characters and stories that they can then share with their friends. The young people meet in groups and work together to devise and script their own one-act plays, which they go on to perform in a school assembly (a considerable achievement for all the children involved). The children can then observe their plays being rehearsed by professional actors and later performed at a local community theatre or arts centre to an invited audience of classmates, family and friends. The very fact that the plays are written by the children and performed by professional actors immediately raises the status of the participants amongst their peers and increases their confidence in their own achievements. The project takes a cross art-form approach using film clips, cartoons and stills as inspiration to support children who are more visually aware and to help minimise the fear that words could hold for them. Drama exercises are used to express and communicate ideas, thoughts and feelings. The group can then explore the arising human intentions, motivations and consequences, which will become the written narratives of their superhero stories. National Curriculum literacy objectives are reinforced throughout the project and every child is given scope to explore their own ideas and imagination through movement, art, drama, speech and writing. Each child participates in the creation of a piece of collaborative writing and will receive a written copy of their own superhero short story at the end of the project.