Description
Class times:
Tuesday, Wednesday 4:30. Friday 5:30pm
Starting July 19 – September 20 Nine-week term.
Fee
$225 ($25 per one-hour class). Sibling discount 20%
Venue:
All sessions are led by Michelle and presented online.
Week One – Do Wrong Ron by Steven Herrick
Have you ever had one of those days/weeks/months when everything just goes wrong? Do-Wrong-Ron spends his whole life making mistakes! We’ll read some of this funny novel which is written in free verse and then have a go at writing our own free verse stories.
Week Two – l am the Wind by Michael Karg
We’ll share this beautiful picture book about the wind’s journey across the world from Everest to the Amazon. Imagine being the wind. Where would you go? Would you be a gale or a zephyr? The Wordsmiths will use personification to write from the point-of-view of the wind.
Week Three – Yellow Submarine by The Beatles
“We all live in a yellow submarine, yellow submarine, yellow submarine….” Writers have all sorts of jobs, including creating lyrics. We’ll listen to some of this fun song and read the lyrics together. A song is much like a poem, can you use a simple melody to write your own song?
Week Four – Family Tree by Josh Pike, illustrated by Ronojoy Ghosh
A tree begins as a small seed and grows along with the children who planted it. This book uses figurative language to tell the story of a tree, and a family. We’ll discuss the meaning of figurative language and create our own figurative stories.
Week Five – The Great Kapok Tree by Lynne Cherry
A group of animals try to persuade men from cutting down the oldest tree in the jungle, each giving their own opinion about the importance of the tree. Opinion writing is a valuable skill that we’ll practice today.
Week Six – Stop the Presses!
It’s time to put on your reporter’s cap and sniff out a story. You’ll be given a (fictional) police report, witness statements and get to interview a suspect. Michelle will draw on her journalism career to share the basics of writing a news report.
Week Seven – Be a Dog
First my ears grew long and fluffy; then my arms stretched in to legs and my skin grew shaggy with fur…before I knew it, I was a barking, scratching, howling dog! Suddenly I could smell the tiniest scent; I could run like the wind and jump the highest fence…it was awesome! But there’s no way I’m eating dog food, and what’s with these fleas?
Week Eight – Ode to a Tree
We’ll read the lyrical picture book Poetree in which a child writes poems to a tree. Poems don’t need rules or rhyme to work; we’ll look at different styles of poetry. Did you know you can send a poem to any one of the hundreds of trees in Melbourne; each has its own email address. Let’s write some poems to our local trees.
Week Nine – Free-Writing Frenzy and Reflections
It’s Write-What-You-Like Week to celebrate the end of Term Three. Finish a story from during the term, use Michelle’s Super Story Generator to come up with a story idea or write in any style or genre you choose. We’ll reflect on the topics we’ve covered during the term, the skills we’ve learnt and the confidence we’ve gained as writers.
