ALL ABOUT THE PROCESS OF WRITING

The third workshop of United International University (UIU) and The Daily Star's (TDS) joint initiative 'Imagine - Write Creatively' was held on May 20 at the senior section of Sunnydale School in Dhanmondi, Dhaka. It was an interactive session arranged for the students of the school to usher them into the habit of thinking and writing creatively.

Professor Dr. M Rezwan Khan, Vice Chancellor of UIU, spoke to the students as the session began. He spoke of his difficulties, as a student, with writing and the experiences he had. "Writing is not limited to stories. Even for engineers like us, it is important. The importance of English cannot be overstated because it is the global language of choice.

Most conferences and international journals are in English, and being creative at writing in this language is hugely significant. You are lucky to have this opportunity to learn at this stage," he said. He went on to thank TDS and Sunnydale School for their cooperation. 

Tazeen Ahmed, Principal of Sunnydale School, then delivered a speech in which she thanked TDS and UIU for their joint effort. "We have stopped reading books because of technological advances these days. We need to write because it is still massively important. I appreciate this initiative to bring back the habit of writing," she said.

Zoheb Mashiur, Sub-editor at SHOUT, spoke briefly to the students: "I am the one responsible for the stories published in SHOUT and I am to blame for the ones that aren't. But looking at this workshop today, I hope that at the end of this session we have a lot of submissions from you." 

The workshop got the students involved in activities related to the components of fiction writing. The instructors discussed matters with them, going to the depths of writing fiction, trying to explain what it is. They talked about the construction of a character, a plot, and a climax. The students were shown how to bring all that together into a piece of writing. The instructors arranged games to get them into mood to initiate the process.

Sharmin Sultana was one of the instructors at this workshop. "Our goal is to seek out young individuals with a lot of imagination and creativity," she said. Sultana is an Assistant Professor at UIU. 

The students responded with enthusiasm to the methods of the instructors. Farhan Rashid, who is a 7th grader at Sunnydale, said, "Today's session helped me to come up with new ideas and work with them. I believe this will improve my writing skills." 

For 8th grader Shafquat Haque, it was more about the experience than anything else. "This was completely new. At class we are told to write this and that, but if we aren't good, we aren't shown how to improve. Here, the lessons were more about the process of writing and I think that is more helpful," he said.

Parmita Protik Das, a 9th grader, has previous experience of writing for an online publication. It helped her a great deal, she said. According to her, "This workshop helped us develop our ideas into characters and plots. Through fun and games, we learned about fiction writing. These instructions will help us should we decide to write for a magazine, and even in other fields where writing is important."

Later, Yeasmeen Habib, Vice Principal of the school, talked about how she saw her students learning, as well as enjoying the whole process. She said, "They really enjoyed it because it gave them ideas to develop their writing skills in different ways. Not only that, they realised that if you are a powerful writer, it is easier to get a message across."

PHOTOS: DARSHAN CHAKMA