In this short series students will have the opportunity to both rant and celebrate! Students will learn about the form, language features and history of the ode as well as some useful strategies for idea generating, using mentor texts and beginning a draft.

Have you ever judged a book by its cover? Ever felt that someone judged you? This workshop gives students an opportunity to look beyond our everyday appearances and imagine other people's experiences. Students will develop a portfolio of writing including monologues and short fiction.

Experimenting with style? Considering the audience? Finding it all a little dry? This workshop gives students a chance to practise these specific English skills while engaging in a fun and interactive experience, drawing from two clashing formats - horror movies and letters of complaint. Students will practise mashing stylistic features, language choices, and genre conventions as they craft humorous pieces full of creative choices.

Okay, look, we’re kinda obsessed with stories. Books, movies, tv shows, webcomics, whatever. How do they make such awesome stories? And the CHARACTERS - I want to be their best friend. So sometimes we, kinda, sorta… just write stories about them. IT’S OKAY, it’s totally fine, it’s called fan-fiction!

The first step of learning is imitation. Students will set out to pay homage to the stories and characters they are fans of by using elements of other narratives (their styles, tones, and even their events) to craft original stories set in established universes (and sometimes alternate realities)!

In this series students will plan, write and edit a suite of very short short stories. Flash fiction provides young writers with a short, flexible medium to investigate story structure, characterisation and creatively engage with the mechanics of writing. Students will examine examples of flash fiction, brainstorm and experiment with their own flash fiction and reflect on the creative writing process. Students will gain confidence in experimenting with spoken language, hyperbole, metaphors and similes.