Children Write Fables in This School

Beicheng Neighborhood Central Primary School of Huangyan is big on two counts: it has a student population of over 1，900 and more than half of the pupils write fables and verses. In 2009 alone， the young Aesop-wannabes at the school in central Zhejiang had published more than 200 fables in education newspapers. On December 15， 2009， a ceremony was held at the school designating the school as a national base of creative fable writing.

Qiu Laigen， now the CPC chief at the school， attributes the success of the fable writing program to the Green Screen Hill. This school stands at the foot of the hill. The hill was the regional cultural center of Taizhou in the Southern Song Dynasty (1127-1279). Influential scholars and high-ranking officials visited the hill over years and their names are part of the cultural glory and heritage the local people hold dear to their hearts.

Green Screen Hill is a prefix for names of all the literary activities， organizations and publications， and self-made anthologies at the school. Naturally， the school paper has this prefix in its name， too.

Qiu Laigen teaches Chinese and is an experienced fable writer. Since his first fable accepted and published in 1982， he has turned out four collections of fables. Over the past 17 years he has served as the schoolmaster. In 1997， he proposed fable writing as a solution to writing difficulties children usually experience at this period of their education. The faculty embraced the initiative enthusiastically. Qiu organized a literary group called Green Screen Hill Literary Society. Lectures were offered after lunch break on Tuesdays and Thursdays to interested students from middle and senior classes.

In the first year， quotas were assigned. Only three students from each class could come to the fable lectures. But students were hooked. They flocked to the lectures. In some cases， nearly a whole class came to attend a lecture. The literary society had over 50 members in 1997; there are more than 200 today. The provincial writers’ association took notice of the literary phenomenon. In April， 2004， the association named the school a training base for young writers.

Teachers have coached young writers well. Qiu Laigen has summarized his experiences and wrote a few papers on fable writing. Today these papers are a must for young learners. Writing fables is a way for pupils to learn how to generate ideas and how to put thoughts together and how to tell stories naturally.

The school engages experts and writers from outside to give lectures to children. Sun Chunze， a famed fable writer， spent eight months at the school coaching the young ambitious writers. Wang Xufeng， a Hangzhou-based writer， and Guan Jiaqi， a writer from Taiwan， have visited the school and given lectures.

China Education Daily， a national trade publication， runs special pages for composition for primary schools. The newspaper has covered the Green Screen Hill Literary Society twice in recent years. In 2008， New World for Compositions， a regular program at the newspaper， dedicated 5 pages to the Green Screen Hill Literary Society， recommending it for the designation as a national excellent school literary organization.

Today， the school enjoys its reputation on fable writing. The best verses and short essays can be seen posted on walls on the campus. The school makes its resources available to young aspiring writers when they write fables. □