On Monday, the Year 12 and 13 students of Sancta Maria College were privileged to be visited by the New Zealand author Kate de Goldi. Her visit was part of Library Week 2018, where a multitude of activities are being held in our school library to celebrate literature.
Kate spent the whole school day at the College talking to English students, and hosting two workshops. During Period 1, Kate addressed all students who take Year 12 or 13 English, and told us about her experience with the widely known School Journal, and how that inspired her to create an annual for older audiences. She also mentioned her future plans to make a similar annual aimed at adults.
During this same slot, Kate discussed the influence her experiences with her family had on her writing and gave some advice to the students in attendance on how to use personal stories to begin writing.
The next two hours were spent in the first creative writing workshop, this one available for Year 12 English students. Only a few students from each English class were lucky enough to be chosen to attend, and all of them received valuable pointers on how to improve their writing from Kate. This advice boiled down to “read more, write more and notice more.”
The students then analysed the structure of two texts from Kate’s annual, and then started planning their own texts based on similar structures. The first text was titled ‘Twelve Hats’ and told the story of the author’s sentimental attachment to his collection of crocheted beanies. The second was a poem addressed to a wall commemorating the American soldiers who died in combat during the Vietnam War. The same activities were completed by the Year 13 students who attended the second creative writing workshop during Periods 4 and 5.
All the students who were able to hear from Kate greatly benefitted from her advice. It was a fantastic experience to be able to hear from such an acclaimed author.
Danica Loulie-Wijtenburg
