This week 4 of our Year 7/8 Writers participated in a Writing Master Class at the fantastic new Tūranga Library in town.

This week Marcus, Karlie, Rani and Vanessa participated in a writing master class. The master class was titled  Encounter out Stories and was part of the Beca Christchurch Heritage Festival. 

The workshop was facilitated by  award-winning writers Gail Ingram and Heather McQuillan and with support from Tūranga staff. The young writers  became microfiche detectives and investigated the stories of places and people they connect with. They were then guided by expert tutors from WRITE ON School for Young Writers to write their own stories, poems or personal thoughts in response.

Read what the students had to say about their experience below.

Vanessa Tam: On Monday Rani, Karlie, Marcus and I travelled to Turanga Library to participate in a Writing Master Class, with two Award-Winning Writers: Heather and Gail. I enjoyed writing poems about Christchurch and its history. I also enjoyed going around the Library, to find out more facts and information about Christchurch. Some new writing skills I learnt was: to use more similes and metaphors in my writing, because it makes the piece of writing more interesting, to give your writing layers- not just a description, use more abstract words/vocabulary, and use line breaks in my poems. I think the two pieces of writing I produced at the master class, were the best pieces of writing I’ve ever done. I am really thankful for that opportunity to improve my writing. 

Karlie Wright: This experience was fun and interesting. I enjoyed getting the opportunity to learn more about the history of Christchurch and produce my own pieces of writing based on the learning. I particularly found looking at newspapers dating all the way back to the 1950s interesting. It’s surprising what was important then, compared to what is now. Before producing work, Heather and Gali taught us key concepts that are important in writing. A few of these were: include a range of abstract vocabulary, use similes and metaphors to keep your piece of writing alive, and use line breaks in poems. These tips we were taught have truly helped improve my skills, as I noticed in my produced pieces. 

Marcus: On Monday Rani, Vanessa, Karlie and I went to Tūranga for a writing workshop with the professional writers Heather and Gail. We learned lots of useful stuff in a fun and interactive way that utilised the library to its full extent. We learned about taking notes then using those notes to create two great pieces of writing, we also learned about punctuation as well as similes and metaphors. The two helped me figure out ways to put all of my ideas onto a page then configure and edit them in a way that would create a great piece of writing. I am really grateful to Heather and Gail for providing this opportunity that helped us all improve so much.