Mary Cuffy

Have you ever won­dered how to make cre­ative writ­ing en­joy­able? For many chil­dren prepar­ing for the SEA ex­ams in pri­ma­ry school, cre­ative writ­ing can be a chal­leng­ing area. Meet Mrs Nali­ni Moti­lal of Mrs Nali­ni's Cre­ative Class­room, a ded­i­cat­ed teacher, en­tre­pre­neur, and cre­ative writ­ing en­thu­si­ast.

Born in San­gre Grande and raised in Amer­i­ca for eight years, Mrs Nali­ni, al­so fond­ly called "Miss Nali­ni" by the stu­dents, cred­its her time spent in the US and her ex­pe­ri­ences in el­e­men­tary, mid­dle, and high school as sig­nif­i­cant con­trib­u­tors to her teach­ing style here in Trinidad.

Her love for teach­ing blos­somed while pur­su­ing her Bach­e­lor’s de­gree in Ed­u­ca­tion with a fo­cus on Lan­guage and Lit­er­a­ture. She dis­cov­ered a burn­ing pas­sion for teach­ing Eng­lish Lan­guage Arts and Cre­ative Writ­ing in a way that is fun, en­gag­ing, and in­ter­ac­tive.

"Bring­ing Cre­ative Writ­ing Alive" has al­ways been her mot­to. She trans­forms her class­room in­to imag­i­na­tive spaces, cre­at­ing themes like Willy Won­ka's Choco­late Fac­to­ry, Goose­bumps, and Crime Scenes, while in­cor­po­rat­ing the idea that read­ing is fun­da­men­tal.

One of her first events, "Sips and Sto­ries", aimed to con­nect read­ing with cre­ative writ­ing in an en­gag­ing and re­lat­able way for chil­dren, specif­i­cal­ly those in stan­dards 3 to 5.

Mrs Nali­ni's in­no­v­a­tive ap­proach to teach­ing has not on­ly made cre­ative writ­ing en­joy­able but has al­so in­spired her stu­dents to ex­cel in their SEA ex­ams.

Af­ter this year's SEA re­sults, some of the chil­dren shared their ex­pe­ri­ences with Guardian Kids.

Dar­nell For­rester: "Fun ac­tiv­i­ties like do­ing a 'Chow Chal­lenge' for re­port writ­ing and act­ing out in­ci­dent re­ports made writ­ing more en­gag­ing and helped me strength­en my skills, where­by I passed for my first choice, Hillview Col­lege."

Aiden Con­liffe: "I re­al­ly loved the way Miss Nali­ni gave us ex­pe­ri­ences such as the 'Goose­bumps Work­shop'. These ex­pe­ri­ences al­lowed me to de­vel­op my vo­cab­u­lary and imag­i­na­tion to build my sto­ries for cre­ative writ­ing."

Zion Baldeo: "I have de­vel­oped a life­long love for writ­ing be­cause of Miss Nali­ni's pow­er­ful teach­ing filled with vivid im­agery, cre­ative class­room set­tings, in­spir­ing field trips, and end­less op­por­tu­ni­ties to imag­ine the unimag­in­able."

Sofia Seep­er­sad: "I en­joy cre­ative writ­ing more be­cause of Mrs Nali­ni. She has helped make cre­ative writ­ing fun. Mrs Nali­ni did an 'Ex­plode the Top­ic' ac­tiv­i­ty, which helped me get 19/20 in SEA."

Jhy­heim Pierre: "I love Cre­ative Writ­ing now be­cause these ex­pe­ri­ences in Miss Nali­ni's class­es have im­mersed me in the sub­ject. The themes were brought to life, and char­ac­ters like Willy Won­ka and Goose­bumps helped me feel a deep­er con­nec­tion to the prompts. I at­tained 20/20 in Cre­ative Writ­ing."

With her guid­ance, these young writ­ers have dis­cov­ered the joy of sto­ry­telling and the pow­er of their imag­i­na­tions. Keep dream­ing big, kids! Your cre­ativ­i­ty knows no bounds!

Mary Cuffy is an ed­u­ca­tor and lo­cal chil­dren’s au­thor. Ms Cuffy is the au­thor of the La­dy­bug book se­ries. Ms Cuffy be­lieves the best in­vest­ment we can make in chil­dren is in the ear­ly years. Email: mary.cuffy@ya­hoo.com • IG: marycuffy • FB: mary cuffy/Lo­la and the Danc­ing La­dy­bug