In this one-off workshop, students will explore the vibrant artworks of Amy Claire Mills, a disabled and neurodivergent artist working on Gadigal Land, in Sydney. Inspired by her bold and imaginative textiles and soft sculpture pieces, students will reflect on the kind of soft spaces—safe, welcoming places—they’d love to spend time in.

Students imagine they have travelled through a vortex and are now trapped inside the world of a retro video game called Video Vortex. They choose their own avatar who progresses through the strange and different levels of this game as they overcome obstacles to “level up” and return home. Students develop skills in sensory writing and focus on world building and narrative structure as they create short episodes/chapters that describe their experiences moving through the game.

In this program students will write news reports of invented traditions celebrated at their own creatively imagined towns. They will be inspired by traditions from far-flung places around the world to create stories, monologues, celebrating town festivities and interviewing imagined residents after a small town incident. Students will develop descriptive writing skills, characterisation and setting creation. Students have the opportunity to write in a news modality, while exercising their creativity and imagination.

Looking to share contemporary Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander voices with your students? Each week students will explore a music video by contemporary Indigenous artists, including Baker Boy and King Stingray, and use their songs as inspiration for their own lyric writing. 

They will learn about Indigenous cultures and languages from diverse communities around Australia. 

Students will explore rhyme, similes and metaphor as they write lyrics on their own experiences and values in forms such as rap and lullabies.