Spritivity Workshops in East London and Beijing
for Students at Primary School Level
In the case study of a set of Spritivity workshops for
students at primary school level, shown on this website, a
set of sprites can be drawn and painted by members of a
group of students, who collectively can assemble a whole
repertory company of sprites. that they can then work with
in small groups to construct picture books, each employing
some sprites from this set. When complete, the picture
books can be sent to students in another country where the
students do not necessarily share the same written or
spoken language, as is the case with children in English
and Chinese primary schools. In the case described here,
the initial descriptions of the sprites, and the initial
five picture books, were made by students in an East London
School, (
Jubilee primary school in
Hackney),
the text components were translated into Chinese
(Mandarin) and the books were sent to China. However,
most of the language in the picture books is rich
audiovisual language - and this needs no translation to
be understood.
Copies of the sprites created by the English students who
made the picture books were sent to China along with the
picture books (and with the descriptions of their
characteristics, translated into Chinese). The Chinese
students who received them were participants in Spritivity
workshops organized by Spritivity Worldwide and the Chinese
National Museum of Art. The participating primary school
level students could understand the Jubilee picture books
and the the Jubilee sprites, interpret them in their own
context, and add them to the repertoire of sprites the
spritesthat they had created themselves by extracting them
from the chinese contexts in which they were
grounded.China. They then used this extewndede repertoire
of sprite to form the storiies which they showed and told
within their own Spritivity picture books.
In these workshops, the particpating Beijing students
students created and described sprites which the Jubilee
students could then use, together with their own sprites,
providing an enhanced repertoire for story telling and
performing, and in making enhanced picture books.
Explore the first
workshop at Jubilee Primary School
Explore the second
workshop at Jubilee Primary School
Explore the workshops in
Beijing
Explore the third
workshop at Jubilee school
As the picture books and sprites are exchanged to and fro
between the participating groups of students, the
repertoire of sprites, available to all, will grow
progressively. Subsequent stories in the picture books can
employ a mixture of English-grounded and Chinese-grounded
sprites: providing a rich generative language for story
telling and showing, which is grounded in both English and
Chinese cultures, offering real opportunites for exploring
in depth how theses culture work and can profitably
interact, providing resources fo innovative and creative
understanding of the participating students' own
surroundings and the possibilities that might exist
therein.