Ardeer Primary School students have recently celebrated being published authors thanks to a program called Writer in Residence run by Ardoch, a non-profit education support organisation that delivers creative learning programs to schools in the north and west.
Ardoch’s vision is that every child’s potential is realised through full participation in education. Published authors deliver book-writing workshops to students at our partner primary schools.
Children develop skills in writing, composition, and individual expression through creativity.
The weekly workshops extend over seven weeks during which the writer helps the children identify story ideas, build characters, pen their stories, edit them, create illustrations and put a story book together, or an anthology of student works, which is then published and distributed to each child.
The program aims to enhance students’ literacy and language skills, build confidence in their own voice, and enhance their aspirations for creativity, storytelling and writing.
Author Nean McKenzie worked with 22 students across grades 4 and 5 to create a fantasy focused book of stories called “18 Stories about Dragons”.
“It was a great program and I really enjoyed seeing how the students’ stories progressed over the four weeks,” she said.
“They were all very keen on the idea of dragons and came up with lots of unique and entertaining stories about them.
“I went through getting ideas, developing characters, plotting, beginnings, ends and finally editing, it was a privilege to spend time with the students and see their enthusiasm for stories. I have encouraged them to keep reading as much as they can.”
Gerald Lynch
