IRC News
Book Week Celebrations 2022
It was a great pleasure to celebrate Book Week in person at school this year after celebrating virtually for the past two years due to Covid Lockdown. The theme of this year’s Book Week was “Dreaming with eyes open.” The Information Resource Centre staff organized a range of activities and competitions such as recommendation of books to staff and students to read, music and Bollywood performances, Interhouse Quiz, Interhouse Spelling Bee and Creative writing competitions.
We welcomed two well-known Australian writers-in-residence. Gabrielle Williams, who spoke to all year 9 students on the background of her ideas for creative writing and conducted workshops for selected students while Alice Pung spoke to all year 10 students on her experiences of growing up as a migrant in Melbourne. She also conducted a workshop for selected students from all year levels, which contributed to the content of her writing on the creative writing process.
All students were encouraged to participate in creative writing competitions in various categories such as 5 worder, 50 worder, poems and short stories as well.
The celebrations concluded with a book character and multicultural dress up parade on Friday. The photos below show some of the activities during Book Week celebrations.
Many thanks to our Library Leaders and Ms Desaulniers for assisting the IRC staff in the preparation of displays and organising the activities for the Book Week.
Kalpana Lal
Library Technician
Creative Writing Workshop with Alice Pung - Year 10
“People always tell me there’s plenty of fish in the sea, but I always end up with the bloody squid!”
"Until that moment, I never knew such poetry could come from a racist bogan on the train." Before Alice Pung's workshop on August 25th, we had no idea how such a trivial exchange of remarks could inspire the making of masterpieces.
While many students probably expected a lecture on TEEL and grammar, Alice Pung challenged this perception by captivating her audience with humorous recounts. During her time at Nossal, she spoke with the Year 10 cohort and a separate workshop, opening with the challenges packaged along with growing up Asian in Australia. She was truthful in recollecting the experiences that not only shaped her as a person but also inspired some of her written works. We also heard about her experiences as a writer and gained expert tips on what makes a great novel. For instance, keeping the authenticity of the characters’ voices and opting for a cheap notebook for your bursts of inspiration.
We were fortunate enough to meet the author, editor and lawyer, and some were lucky enough to get her signature. Through the provided activities, visual aides and stories, we were ultimately given more insight into what it takes to be a writer. Alice Pung is a witty and accomplished author. She is best known for her work Laurinda, and now best known to Nossal High School for the lasting impact her engaging presentations left behind.
Annabella Woo
Year 10
Creative Writing Workshop with Gabrielle Williams - Year 9
One of the best things about Nossal is that we get the chance to experience opportunities where we can expand our knowledge and work on our skills. Recently, we got to experience one of those opportunities. During book week, all year 9’s got to attend a lecture by author Gabrielle Williams and some of us got to also attend her writing workshop. Gabrielle Williams has written many successful novels such as “My Life as a Hashtag” and “Beatle Meets Destiny”. During the lecture and workshop Gabrielle gave us some tips which she uses to create ideas for novels and write them. She helped us to see that ideas are everywhere around us and that any simple thing can be turned into a good book if you can recognise how to use it. That even memorising an interesting conversation or idea can be used to write a novel. Gabrielle’s writing workshop was centred around how she comes up with ideas for characters, and we tried putting her tips to use by turning playing cards into characters. She taught us to use a number of methods to create a character and to write their personality. Such as taking inspiration from people in real life, other characters, inanimate objects, hobbies, spirituality and even mythology.
Overall, I’m really grateful for being able to attend both the lecture and the workshop as I feel it helped me learn ways, I can become a better creative writer and a thinker in general.
Himanshi Rankoth Gonagale Gedara
Year 9