Author Emma Bowd recently worked with year 3, 4, 5 and 6 students at Braybrook’s Dinjerra Primary School to transform a story into a published book, which was launched at the school on Friday, November 10.
Ms Bowd was at the school as part writer in residence program is run by Ardoch, which is an educational support non-for-profit organisation designed to engage students in literacy activities.
During the program, a published children’s author leads weekly workshops, guiding and inspiring students to develop their creativity, storytelling and writing skills.
Ms Bowd said she had an enormous amount of fun creating her first storybook with students.
“It is a credit to the students that they all worked so well together,” she said.
“I could not be happier with Happy and the Sports Carnival Day Disaster. It’s an entertaining and joyous story with many lovely connections to school life at Dinjerra Primary. All the illustrations are the work of the talented students.”
Year 5 classroom teacher Rebecca Clark said the process was very collaborative and kept the students engaged through each of the three sessions.
“It was a very creative, meaningful and fun process which was mostly group work, talking about sharing ideas, incorporating school values and emotional regulation framework,” she said.
One class from each year level participated, carrying on each other’s work.
“The year 3’s and 4’s worked on from the beginning, and then the 5’s and 6’s carried on, while they all worked on the illustrations,” she said.
“One group of students drew animals, some drew students, they all drew themselves and the teachers.”
Jennifer Pittorino
