This workshop covers the lifespan of creative writing, from where ideas come from to the process for creating a completed piece. Whether you are just interested in the idea of creative writing or are in the middle of a writing project, this course can help you sharpen your skill set or find new creative interest.
The workshop aims to develop creative thinking skills, identify and explain fundamental narrative and language techniques, show how critical thinking can be applied to creative endeavours and give helpful tips and tricks for making stories come to life.
Students will have the opportunity to engage with a range of written texts, to write their own short pieces and to share ideas on the creative process.
Defining Creativity.
Students will explore the concept of creativity and how it shapes thoughts. They will look at the way creative minds across industries perceive creativity and determine whether or not there is just one definition of this far-reaching skill.
What's Creative Writing?
Students will explore the different types of texts that fit under the banner of 'creative writing', along with why we use it and how important it can be.
Thinking Creatively: Where do Ideas Come From?
Using example texts and the musings of established writers, students will explore the different ways creative ideas are formed and, working with stimulus images, learn how to alter thinking patterns to unearth creative ideas.
Narrative Techniques: Making Meaning Through Story.
Students will participate in a crash course of the key elements of narrative techniques such as plot, character, setting, perspective, tense and dialogue. Short writing activites and a look at popular story formats across creative mediums, including film, aim to connect students' personal interests with creative writing theory.
Language Techniques: Making Meaning Within the Writing.
Students will review a range of language techniques, their definition and purpose and begin to explore ways of adapting them in their own writing.
Creative vs Critical: How they go Hand-in-Hand.
Using an excerpt of a well-known contemporary text, students analyse how meaning is created in the writing by identifying language and narrative techniques learnt previously and having discussions about how they engage the reader.
The Writing Process.
The writing process is broken down into six steps, with each step explained and related back to content learnt throughout the day. Students may share personal opinions on the writing process and the whole class will have a look at writing tips from established writers.
Red Pen
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Notepad/Notebook
Simone Saba completed a Bachelor of Arts (English Literature) and a Bachelor of Education (Secondary) at Macquarie University Sydney and is a qualified NSW English and Society and Culture teacher. She’s passionate about the way creative texts provide new perspectives on the society in which we live and vice versa.
She has worked across educational settings including primary and high schools, adult VET institutions and private tutoring. In 2023 she was a marker of the NAPLAN creative written response.
Simone has a Graduate Certificate in Editing and Publishing from the University of Technology Sydney and works as a freelance Editor and Proofreader. She has worked on unpublished fiction manuscripts, short and long-form copy for business and government and educational resources for students and teachers.
From a favourite song to a child’s picture book to novels stacked in a library, she believes in the profound power of words, wherever we may find them.
