SIS Write a Book in a Day 

On Thursday 23 July I attended a non-fiction creative workshop with Abigail as part of our training for SIS 'Write a Book in a Day'. 

We read a few pieces for writing and discussed what we liked about them and how the writer used very in-depth ways of describing things like facial expressions. For example: “Her face was so wrinkled it was like the skin of an avocado.”    

Then we talked about how we can relate to something that has been written. We read about the space probe that is going around the sun and how it is taking pictures of the sun. Scientists were saying that they were seeing little campfires around the sun and then we were told to relate to it. 

Overall I think it was a great day to have been in and I learned so much from it. 

Liam Stevens 

Year 8.1

On the 23 July, those students involved in the SIS Write A Book in a Day competition had the opportunity to attend a training Zoom. We had three options and the one I chose gave viewers an idea on how to start a story. The Zoom attendants were given this method to remember when beginning to write a novel: 

Surprising 

Talking 

Action 

Ridiculous 

Transformation  

This is called the “Start Method”. Students also practiced writing a part of a novel in 5 minutes and were also given questions about books that they had read. Special thanks to Rafael (Who ran the Zoom), Mr Perry for helping us get ready and become better writers and all those involved in the Write a Book in a Day competition. 

The SIS competition will be run online on August 11 followed by the Australia-wide competition at the end of August. NATIONALS HERE WE COME! 

Let’s do this, team! 

Ben Reid 

Year 9 

On 23 July the St James College Golden Pen team attended the 'Write A Book In A Day' Training Workshop via Microsoft Teams. I attended the Starting Your Story workshop with Rafael Ward. It was an interesting experience to get to hear other students talk about their favourite and different ways of planning to write a book. Some people were planners and liked to plan their book out first. Some people were people who wrote their book as soon as they were inspired by something and didn’t spend a lot of time planning. 

We learnt about the START technique for writing a book and how to make it engaging. 

All in all it was a very well done workshop and I took some information out of it which will be handy when the Golden Pen team competes on August 11 at the SIS Write A Book In A Day. 

Tom Reid

Year 9

Damian Perry

Technology Leader