It has been a great privilege to be given the role of Learning Enrichment this year at Golden Hill Steiner School. The Learning Enrichment role has allowed me to integrate my work as an author (on my non-teaching days) with my work as a teacher, and it has been a joy to foster the student’s rich imaginative worlds, while building on critical literacy skills though our creative endeavours.

In Class Three, students have been reinforcing their knowledge of nouns, verbs and adjectives through literacy games. We have also looked at narrative structure through examining the work of exemplary Australian authors and illustrators such as Margaret Wild, Shaun Tan and Ron Brooks. We have brought these writers’ and artists’ ideas into our own journal work and stories with great effect!

In Class Four, we have kept a creative writing journal and learnt about the key components of a narrative. We have also learnt a series of poems about animals and written poems about seasons and nature, focusing on form, sound, senses and using specific detail.

In Class Five we have focused on reading in small groups and building on our reading comprehension. Class Six have been focusing exclusively on narrative structure, including exploring narrative point of view and creating believable and engaging characters through action, dialogue, body language as well as conveying a sense of the character’s humanity. We hope you enjoy this small sample of what we have been writing about, and keep an ear out at the autumn festival for our wonderful Bunuru seasonal poems!

Class 6

Maggie Carruthers (excerpt)

‘I woke this morning and knew it was my time; maybe it was the rain against the windows or maybe it was my thoughts, but either way I knew it was time. I saw the way my daughter’s face drooped when she saw me in my bed all frail and tiredꟷ I think she knew too. So I pulled myself out of my bed…and used the last of my energy and took Sophie out. I showed her the reflections on the lake, the leaves on the trees and the clouds moving with the wind like gentle hands.’

Class 4

‘Water’ by Isaac Kostera

Looks like glass reflecting light

Feels like silk mixed with honey

Sounds like tiny tinkling silver bells

Smells like the salty brine of the deep

‘Bunuru’ by Leeuwin David

The creek trickling like a serpent

Honeyeaters flying through the canopy

looking for a mate to build their nests

gentle sound of the leaves softly falling

whitetails nibbling eucalyptus leaves

sea breeze under my nose

water drying like a leaf in summer sun

Class 3

Safi Watkins (excerpt)

‘Then I saw a wallaby off in the distance. Fox leapt, he thrust out his paws. His claws looked like the talons of a sea eagle about to grasp its prey. The moment seemed to freeze for a second, then it was gone. Fox growled...’

Renee Schipp