Author Visits October 2011
Lauren St. John
Lauren St. John, author of the Blue Peter Book of the Year Deadman's Cove, spoke passionately about her childhood experiences growing up on a farm in war-torn Zimbabwe and how these experiences influenced her storywriting. Much of her childhood, and indeed, her adult life has been devoted to the conservation of wild animals and their natural habitats. Many of her stories about caring for wild animals were shared during her assembly and the girls found her tales to be very moving. Girls in Lower II also had the opportunity to develop their creative writing skills in a workshop focusing on how to communicate the 'five senses' of an event or setting to the reader. Lauren also impressed upon the girls the importance of reading, particularly if you want to be a good writer.
Kit Wright
Award winning poet Kit Wright entertained the girls with his enthusiastic and animated recital of his amusing poems, particularly Zoe's Earrings. His skill as a storyteller and his ability to paint such effective imagery through his rhyming poems was received with rapt attention. During the remainder of the day, he worked with girls in Upper II to help them write their own versions of The Magic Boxwith great success. The girls' imaginations and use of beautifully descriptive phrases created such vivid pictures that you could visualise all of these fantastic objects, feelings and mythical beings pouring out of these richly ornamented boxes.
Box of Delights
Continuing with the theme, the Bibliocats prepared a 'box of delights' containing five varied objects to be used as a tool for creative writing exercises within each form from PPII to UII. Each form was allowed to develop their own stories, with some choosing to write about individual objects within their box and others electing to incorporate all of the objects into one story. A wonderful selection of their substantial efforts was read out in Sharing Assembly. The imagination and ability to convey a sense of ownership, significance and even suspense using these different objects was wonderful to hear.
Paired Reading
Another highlight of the week was the paired reading where the older girls in LII and UII were asked to share their favourite storybook with girls in PPI and PPII. The strength of the St Catherine's community was never more obvious then when you see the strong bond form between the storyteller and the listener when sharing a childhood favourite such as The Tiger Who Came to Tea, Tatty Ratty or Winnie the Witch for the Pre-Prep girls to enjoy.
