Presentations and Writing Workshops:

The Inner Magician

Duration - 1-1.5 hours

Suitable for all ages from Grade 5 up - Content is tailored to each group.

Writing an imaginative story is not a linear process, with the best and most unique and engaging ideas frequently originating from hidden creative deeps. This workshop teaches students a variety of techniques to access their own imaginative depths, through a series of specific portals into story ideas. Especially useful for NAPLAN preparation!

Topics Covered:

• How the imagination works
• Stream-of-consciousness writing for warming up
• How to get ideas through a variety of stimuli including: objects, the senses, and random words and images

Curriculum Outcomes:

• Writing and representing
• Thinking imaginatively, creatively and interpretatively
• Expressing themselves
• Create literary texts that explores students’ own experiences and imaginings
• Create literary texts using realistic and fantasy settings
• Create literary texts by using storylines, characters and settings

 

First Kiss or a Beer Drinking Bear?

Duration – 1 hour

Suitable from Grade 5 up - Content is tailored for each group

This author presentation uses real-life storytelling to teach story writing and telling techniques in a way in which students don’t even realise they're learning. The presentation is a lot of fun, gets the kids laughing, and is especially suited for working with larger audiences. No pen or paper required!

Topics Covered:

•  What makes an engaging story (and what makes a boring one)
•  How to make a story memorable through specific details
•  How to engage a listener or reader using sensory language
•  How to create a sense of interest and intrigue about what will happen next

Curriculum Outcomes:

•  Speaking and listening
•  Writing and representing
•  Thinking imaginatively, creatively and interpretatively
•  Expressing themselves

 

Written on the Body - Creating Compelling Characters

Suitable from Grade 6 - Content is tailored for each group

This workshop takes a unique approach to discovering a character through a process of segueing back and forth between their character’s inner world of perception and outer sensory experiences. Students will literally write on a drawing they create.

Topics Covered:

•  Discovering an original character vs inserting stereotypes into a story
•  Using aspects of their character’s body to reveal and record their experiences
•  Distinguishing between the character’s exterior sensory world and perceptions of it
•  Learning how to use their character’s inner and outer world to create a story plot

 Curriculum Outcomes:

•  Writing and representing
•  Thinking imaginatively, creatively and interpretatively
•  Expressing themselves
•  Create literary texts that explores students’ own experiences and imaginings
•  Create literary texts using realistic and fantasy settings
•  Create literary texts by using storylines, characters and settings

 

Choose Your Own Curriculum-Connected Adventure...

Duration 1 - 1.5 hours

Suitable for all stages - Content is tailored for each group

Having worked as a schoolteacher for over twenty years, along with delivering hundreds of writing workshops throughout Australia, Melaina is able to create bespoke workshops to specifically fit with your areas of study and curriculum needs.

Topics Covered:

•  Whatever is the focus and priority for your students!

How to Make Bad Writing Better and Good Writing Great!

with Melaina Faranda

Duration 1-1.5hours (or for older students can be longer - this workshop is especially valuable for Years 10 and up)

This self-editing workshop is a distillation of techniques gleaned from working with twenty plus editors from over ten different publishing companies and for many students is surprisingly enjoyable! The focus is not on grammar and punctuation, so much as specific editing techniques taught in a step-by-step easy format that even the most disinterested writers can use to instantly improve their writing (and marks). Great for NAPLAN or HSC preparation.

Topics Covered:

• A brief demonstration of the process of how books are edited and an embarrassing confession
• Distinguishing between the art and craft of writing a story
• Numerous self-editing techniques learned from over twenty different editors 
• Easy to learn nuts and bolts tools and techniques for students to instantly apply to their work!

 

Workshop: How to Write a Story Without Having to Think…

With Melaina Faranda

Duration 1-1.5 hours

‘But I don’t know what to write…’ Ever heard that one before? In this fun, engaging, highly imaginative (and frequently surprising) creative writing workshop, students are taken through a process, invented by Melaina one dark and stormy night… Actually, it was a moment of playfulness that led to the invention of a writing technique which has since delighted kids and adults across Australia. Both highly enjoyable and strangely effortless, the outcome of this workshop is the beginnings, bones, inspiration, and discovery of images and stories your students might never have believed themselves capable of.

Topics Covered:

*How to generate an idea from ‘nothing’

*How to discover and develop story through internal perception & external experiences

*How character motivations can create plot and vice versa

*How to use the senses to deepen and enrich story

*How possessions, surroundings, and memory can create and deepen story

Curriculum outcomes:

• Writing and representing
• Thinking imaginatively, creatively and interpretatively
• Expressing themselves
• Create literary texts that explores students’ own experiences and imaginings
• Create literary texts using realistic and fantasy settings
• Create literary texts by using storylines, characters and settings

 

Storytelling Out Loud!

With Melaina Faranda

Duration - half to full day

Not all people will be writers, but everyone is a storyteller. Long before pen and paper and keyboards and screens…  people told stories. Out loud, and in the moment, with some being passed from mouth to ear for millennia. Stories are at the heart of being human, (we all know how it is to try telling students to stop talking!) and learning to tell a story well is a priceless life skill. In this fun, action-packed workshop - students will learn specific skills and techniques for crafting, remembering, voice work, characterisation, gesture, movement, and the presentation of a story. They will be given opportunities to develop confidence in public speaking and becoming more engaging storytellers!

Topics Covered:

*Crafting stories to tell aloud

*Techniques for exploring and memorising stories

*Voice work

*Creating characterisation through voice, gaze, and gesture

*Movement

*Overall presentation skills

Curriculum links and outcomes:

• Thinking imaginatively, creatively and interpretatively
• Expressing themselves
• Performing Arts
• Language, ideas and dramatic meaning
• Mood and atmosphere