Museum Trip

The first week back this term and we got to go on a class trip to the Auckland Museum. We went because it links to our topic, which is Dinosaurs. 
We had an amazing session with Freya, who talked to us about fossils. We learnt so much and have been able to use that new knowledge in our class work. 
Here are some photos from our session. 
Enjoy!!!! 😄

Auckland Writer's Festival

Auckland Writer’s Festival.

One word, AMAZING!! After a torturing long bus drive we arrived at the Writer’s Festival. Jumping up, up, up the stair’s we entered the writer’s workshop. Meeting the author David Hill was a blast. He taught us the three “T’s”, Topic’s, Trick’s and Target’s.

Topics: Topics can include something you would like to go back to. Like a performance, a place, a person, an animal or a special event you can write about that, focusing on a moment in time and adding lots of detail so the reader is really engaged in your writing.

Tricks: Tricks include all the things you can come with to make a great story, like an embarrassing story tends to make the audience perk up with curiosity to want to hear more… I’m sure everyone loves a good embarrassing story.

Targets: Targets are something you aim for, you have to plan ahead to fully understand where you story’s going to end up and give yourself a visual of how you’re going to write it.

What David Hill also taught us was that every story needs an interesting opening sentence. He said that the opening sentence should give a brief tell of what the story will be like and give the reader the desire to want to read more. 

Sarah, R1

Auckland Writer's Festival

Auckland Writer’s Festival 2017

On Tuesday the 16^th May, Sandra, Alifeleti, Hope, Wilson and I went to a writer’s workshop, where we learnt about how to draw and describe characters.

 Our teacher, Zak Waipara, told us to choose a fairy tale and a genre, then put them together which allowed us to use a well-known story and create something new. So, Sandra, Alifeleti and I chose Goldilocks and our genre was fantasy. We decided to make the bear’s mutant by turning them into half bear, half wolf. We struggled with the drawing part, but it was fun to try another way to start the writing process.

Those 45 minutes of my life will help me improve my writing because I can now visualise my characters even more, which will mean I can add more detail to any of my stories.

I enjoyed my time at the 2017 Writer’s Festival!

By: Lorisha, Room 1

Auckland Writer's Festival

My Work-Shop Experience at the 2017 Auckland Writer’s Festival

Yesterday, a load of chosen students from multiple schools including Clendon Park School, went to the 2017 Auckland Writer’s Festival.

Daisy, Tyler, Adirua, Mafile’o and I all had a Work-shop lesson with Renata Hopkins, Author of the fairy-tale ‘The Cry Baby’. In the work-shop, Renata gave us a worksheet with multiple tasks on it. The first task, she taught us was Fairy-tale styled story starters. (E.g. A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away….) She told us about some famous story starters like the Star Wars opening crawl, then we had to make as many story starters as we could in 4-mins. The ones I made were: In a world where swords, shields and flintlocks lasted forever…, In a time when it’s never-ending wars, nuclear explosions and killing of innocents… and In a world where it’s a never-ending nuclear wasteland…

The nest task was to write a rhyme that includes an enchanted item (Charm, curse, spell or a riddle. We learnt about some famous ones like from Jack and The Bean Stalk.

(Fi, Fi, Fo, Fum

I smell the blood of an Englishman

Be he alive, be he dead

I’ll grind his bones to make my bread.)

And then we had to make one ourselves. But I did not complete mine, as we didn’t have enough writing time.

After the second lesson, we had to describe an enchanted object that acts has a portal to another world. Renata told us about a fairy-tale called ‘The Faery Handbag’ where a woman skinned a dog and made a purse out of it and it turned into a portal to another world.

The last lesson was called ‘Trickster heroes walk among us’. What we had to do was to transport a hero or villain in a world that they do not know of and put them in a setting against the ‘new gods’ (Social Media and Celebrities etc.…)

(e.g. “He showed up half-way through the term. He told us his name was Maui but we would call him ‘M’. He said that he was a Demi-God too, but he was always talking crazy like that, always cracking us up. Here’s when I realised he wasn’t kidding.”)  What I wrote was: Our friend Sunset at CH (Canterlot High) said she had magical powers that no one wanted to see, nobody believed her and thought she was plain crazy and just laughed when she told someone or one of her friends. But really… This is when everyone learnt that she wasn’t kidding at all…

After all the lessons, I got Renata Hopkins to sign my journal and then Daisy, Tyler, Adirua, Mafile’o and I went to the next session in the theatre. It was an awesome day.

Jordan, R1            

Auckland Writer's Festival

Auckland Writer’s Festival

Yesterday we went to the Auckland Writer’s Festival and we took turns going into workshops with New Zealand authors. I was in group two so our writer was Renata Hopkins, the author of Cry Baby and the Wind and The Rain. We did some awesome writing exercises.

Our first exercise was to think of story starters for fairy tales or as she called it wonder tales. I came up with two, here is one. It all began with a stubborn beast and a blood red rose.

The next exercise we had to do was think of a riddle, or a spell. I came up with three. Here is my favourite…..

You ate my cake,

That was quite divine,

 Now your memory will be mine.

Our last exercise was my favourite. We had to think of an enchanted object (e.g. Miss Potts from Beauty and the Beast). I thought of a house that looks haunted on the outside and only those who seek adventure will find the beautiful sights that once roamed a mystical land.

I learnt a lot from attending this event and can’t wait to use my new knowledge in my writing.

Daisy

Room 1

Auckland Writer's Festival

Tuesday 15 May, 2017 term 2

Auckland Writer’s festival

One thing I can say about yesterday… tiring. After a long bus trip, I almost fell asleep. When we had finally got to the amazing writer’s festival, every school was dying to get to the authors.

At the festival I learnt that when you are writing you can steal what other people are writing in their books if their idea makes me think of something from my past or something I’m interested in.

In the workshop i went to, there was a man waiting there for us, His name was David Hill. While we were there with him he taught us to go back to something you would like to back to, like a place, animal, person or getting revenge on someone.  He also mentioned topics, tricks and targets. Those things mean the topic you are writing about. Tricks you wrote in your story that made it sound more interesting, AND Targets are things you are aiming for like achieving goals, getting you writing published.

Chantana ,   Room 1

Auckland Writer's Festival

Auckland Writer’s Festival 2017

In a faraway place, lived Renata Hopkins the author we had for our writing workshop. She started the session off with teaching us how to begin our story (E.g. Once upon a time there lived…). Before we could go on to the next process Renata read out one of her stories. Because she writes wonder tales she got us to write some charms, Riddles and Curses. The rhyme that I liked the most was from Rumpelstiltskin, it went like this…

“Today I bake, tomorrow I brew

The next day I steal the Queen’s baby-boo

Oh, it’s good; oh it’s no shame, not a soul knows

Rumpelstiltskin’s name”.

After we finished that exercise we had to write about an enchanted object. I wrote about a trumpet that if you blew it 3 times all you would have to say is the place you wanted to go, and then it would transport you there. Before we finished she read out one of her top stories, ‘The cry baby’, it was a dark wonder tale written like the Grimm Brothers.

This session will help me when I want to write narratives, I can use a mysterious starting sentence, Rhymes and Enchanted objects in my story. I really enjoyed my time at the 2017 Writer’s Festival!J

By Adirua, Room 1