Students at the Middle School have benefited from a number of enrichment and extension activities that have fired the excitement of the students and driven them to great exploration and learning in their core subjects. Ad Astra invited Middle School English Coordinator Claire Wood, and Year 8 Maths teacher Jeff Horoch to tell us more about their activities.
More than just words on paper Claire Wood, Years 7 and 8 English Coordinator On Thursday the 6 September, 28 Year 8 students took part in a Writers’ Workshop at the School’s Mokborree campus. This was a new initiative designed to acknowledge the gifted writers in Year 8 and to provide an opportunity to further develop their writing skills. This program aimed to provide selected Year 8 students with a three day away from school immersion experience to focus on writing.
Veronica Nockles finds inspiration at Mokborree
It was a beautiful setting: the wattle trees were in full bloom, the sky was an ever changing canvas and the kangaroos hopped around in the distance. The wet and windy weather only added to the experience, providing a stimulus for many of the written pieces. The focus of the camp was to ensure it was as little like school as possible. No walls contained the students and they responded extremely well to this less structured environment. The students started their activities at 9am and some finished their writing for the day at 6pm. They were completely engaged, enthusiastic and motivated. The camp provided sessions which focused on the skill of writing creatively, using visual images presented by our Art teacher, Ms Marita Seaton, and various other stimuli provided by the picturesque setting of Mokborree itself. The experience included an incursion with Lia Hills, a renowned poet, novelist and translator. Lia told stories of her experiences as a writer, introduced the students to a range of poetic styles and techniques, and also led students in activities to further develop their story writing, challenging them to be as original as possible. Throughout the two days Lia worked with students, she encouraged them to capture elements of the landscape in their words and showed the students techniques for character development. The students were encouraged to use the setting to experiment
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A three day creative writing experience was a great success
with writing narrative texts, where the setting drives the story, rather than the plot or the characters. Students selected at least one piece of work to edit and prepare for publishing, exposing the students to editing techniques, which they applied willingly. Students showcased their writing by publishing a collection of short stories and poetry in a Mokborree Writers’ Anthology.