English
Year 12 English Workshops
Over the past few weeks, a group of Year 12 English students have been lucky enough to attend workshops delivered by high-achieving English students from the Class of 2020, Jessie Wyatt and Kyla Dwyer. These workshops have been super engaging and helpful, with Jessie and Kyla teaching us about new ways to structure our essays, effective study methods and giving us heaps of helpful tips and tricks to do well in English! They’ve shared with us many nuanced insights into Joan London’s novel, The Golden Age, helped us build our vocabularies, and shared many of the different elements that comprise unique and high-scoring work.
Jessie and Kyla have not only been giving us tailored advice on how to tackle things leading up to SACs and exams, but have also been offering us thoughtful advice on how to maintain our wellbeing whilst also working to improve in VCE English. Both have emphasised the need for us to just 'give it our best each time, do the best we can do, work to improve our own abilities and really utilise the feedback we receive rather than just looking at our scores'. They have positively contributed to our confidence and skill levels, and continue to set us up for success throughout our Year 12 journeys.
Sophia Bryant and
Charlotte Pulbrook
Year 12
Writing Masterclass with Vikki Petraitis
A few weeks ago, some of my 'Kilbreda Chronicle' fellow students and I had the incredible opportunity to partake in a writing masterclass with Australian true crime author and past pupil, Vikki Petraitis. Vikki has written over 15 true crime novels and been nominated for several awards.
Over two weeks, my classmates and I joined some Year 9 students from the 'Writer’s Workshop' elective class to learn about the art of writing. Vikki introduced us to some new ways of character development, particularly using your character’s strengths and weaknesses to build a storyline. This was really interesting and helpful for me and many of the others in the class. I enjoyed this experience and felt incredibly inspired and fortunate to be able to attend this class.
Annabelle Chapman
Year 8
Recently, students were given the opportunity of attending a writer’s masterclass with special guest, Vikki Petraitis. Vikki is an Australian true crime author as well as a former Kilbreda student. Our meeting with Vikki was a wonderful experience.
Vikki told us that 'all the best authors never give their characters a break' and 'that we should take a leaf out of their books' and 'never give our characters a break'.
She talked about how she researched elements of crime and the criminal system, and how she would go to police stations and interview the police and staff to get more perspective on the crimes and the criminals to develop her characters.
Vicki helped every person in that room by helping us expand on our ideas and establish important information to develop our stories and characters, and she gave general advice to those hoping to continue with writing in the future.
Vikki gave me insight to think about what I could write, and what I could do with writing in the future. During the masterclass, Vikki gave everyone a way of remembering how to write the sequence of a story from the rising action to the falling action, giving us sounds to describe the main stages, rather than the usual worded terminology. This helped to not only picture the story but understand its levels of tension.
During our final class we were given the task of writing a plan for our stories, considering all of these elements, and then she sat with each and every one of us to give feedback and inspiration.
Overall, I can safely say that everyone attending the masterclass enjoyed themselves and appreciated Vikki’s insight and company.
Lorelei Kensington
Year 9
Kilbreda Chronicle
During Term 1 and currently, a group of dedicated students across Years 8 to 12 have been busy writing and editing articles for the student led newspaper, the ‘Kilbreda Chronicle’. They have been composing reviews, opinion pieces, advice columns and creative responses.
Working for the 'Kilbreda Chronicle' has offered students the opportunity to refine their planning, writing and editing skills, to consider their target audience (their peers) as well as how to complement their writing with engaging visual images. They have displayed admirable teamwork skills, an openness to others’ ideas and a willingness to knuckle down to get work done out of school hours. They are to be commended for their efforts!
Watch this space for the first edition in 2021!
Kim Elliott and Fiona McDonald
Learning Leaders: English