getting creative
In Semester 2 last year, several Year 7 students attended small group workshops with volunteer teacher Mr Stallone Goh, from EdConnect. These students wanted to learn strategies to extend and enhance their Creative Writing skills.
As a starting point for this activity, each student had to choose a starter sentence beginning “The sign said…”
For inspiration, students were given visuals of several signs, from which they chose one to base their piece of writing on. The 4 signs they could choose from were:
Marvel Park - Enjoy yourself
Confidential – You should not be reading this
Wanted - Brave Employee
Last fuel for 500 kilometres
Alternatively, students could make up their own sign and write about it.
Students then wrote an initial creative writing piece. Under Stallone's guidance, students then worked on developing strategies that would allow them to critically review their work - looking for opportunities to improve grammar, punctuation and vocabulary.
Putting these strategies to work, the students then reviewed, rewrote and improved on their initial piece of creative writing. Completing this process a number of times over, they learned that with persistence and commitment can deliver some really fabulous work!
Here are just some excerpts of the creative writing produced by these students at the end of the year.
Vasilios Zisiadis
Soon the sun had gone down and it was pitch black. James and Peter were scared stiff. That was when the harsh reality hit them like a nail to the head. Bears were all around them with eyes glistening in the dark night sky. A deafening roar pierced the eerie darknesss. The next moment, three bears ran with their claws up to attack James and Peter. Thankfully a truck drove past in the nick of time and rolled over the bears, flattening them beyond recognition.
George Isaac
James finally reached his new house. When he started to unpack, the lights suddenly began to flicker. He looked down the hallway and saw a pair of eyes. Then the lights stopped flickering. He realised that it was just his glow in the dark alarm clock. After he had finished unpacking he decided to go to bed. He walked to his room and turned the lights off. To his horror, he saw the same pair of eyes in the mirror behind him.
Deborah Aryee
One day Mr and Mrs Hollywood were at home alone, on a nice sunny day. They then decided to go to the zoo. But, before they left they would think of two things – pick up their children from their friend’s house and then go to the zoo.
Christos Detsikas
Peter and George were walking into a deep forest in Marvel Park. Out of nowhere, they bumped into a big black smelly wild dog. For two minutes, those menacing eyes stared at Peter and George. For that whole period of time, Peter and George felt as though death was staring deep into their souls.
Loizos Cacoyiannis
The FBI investigators took Chris and Stephan to the secret headquarters and told them that they discovered the secret. Chris and Stephan retorted, "What secret?"
"The secret in the documents! You stole it from the FBI!"
Chris and Stephan exclaimed in anger, "But we didn't! Where is your proof?"
"Take us to school and we will show you!" the FBI investigators replied authoritatively.
Omar Kassem
All of a sudden, they saw a shadow in the distance. It was inching closer each second until they saw what it was. The man stared at them and said in a croaky voice, "You're not meant to be here." They became even more scared and ran away, desperately trying to find the way out. But there were no doors.
Metin Buday
After reaching the petrol station, Jack and Bill topped up the fuel for their car and paid the tow-truck driver some money. Jack and Bill then drove home safe and sound, thinking to themselves, "What an 'eventful' day this had been!"
Ahmed Ahmed
Bob and Daniel found out that John was lagging behind and got bitten by a snake before losing his footing. They immediately carried out first aid on John's wound before calling for an ambulance.
Abdi Hassen
Kalil was over the moon! He skipped home happily, whistling with joy all over. What a truly brave experience this had been for Kalil.
Dusan Marijan
"We should probably walk home", Cole said with a cheeky grin. The reality began to sink in for Cole when he realized this was not a joke. Jay and Cole began to panic as they did not know what to do.
Jay Marino
Mike was rather scared about the sign. But he needed to get to his friend's place. So he kept going...
Out of the blue, he saw a monster that was trying to kill him!
Marlo Marino
Just when he was about to give up, he saw a rose-colored roof of a small house in the middle of a sea of sunflowers. He ran as fast as he could to the house, ripping through the sunflowers because he did not want to be late.