The Creative Writing group has been investigating story orientation, comparing story settings and writing their own story introductions, using visual prompts. They have been challenged to use literary devices to engage the reader’s interest.
They have been introduced to classic story elements, and how the plot structure can be adapted to create suspense, pacing, and emotional impact.
Alex Wanliss, Creative Writing
Students have started work on an SGCNZ Shakespeare Festival entry for Term 1 2027, reading the play and learning soliloquies.
Year 7 are writing their own short plays, Year 8 are studying A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and both classes welcomed back the mobile library.
Year 8 are exploring A Midsummer Night’s Dream and writing their own play scripts, while Year 7 study how playwrights use stage directions.
Poetry students wrote Spot poems, turned five-minute interviews into poems for each other, and chalked words across the playground.
Year 9 have been drafting fantasy narratives, with five student extracts below, while Year 10 revised Language and Literature for their exams.
Year 9 have storyboarded Othello scene by scene. Year 10 are working on Macbeth.
The group are working on original stories in small groups, choosing their own genres and designing covers and illustrations for their books.
Year 7 are drafting their own narratives after studying how authors build suspense. Year 8 have turned When the Mountains Roared into audio drama scripts.
Year 7 have finished poetry and moved on to adventure narratives. Year 8 are studying an extract from When the Mountains Roared.
Both year levels are working through poetic forms and literary devices, and the Auckland Libraries mobile bus called in again this week.
The Creative Writing cohort has been pulling apart the opening pages of well-known novels, then building plots and characters of their own.
Year 9 are turning Othello from page to stage through freeze frames, and Year 10 are preparing for the ASB Theatre production of Macbeth.
Year 7 and 8 students have been writing and presenting persuasive speeches, and the Auckland Council mobile library bus called in at the school.
Year 9s are constructing three-paragraph analytical essays using the BUG formula. Year 10s are working through Cambridge-level language analysis, learning to distinguish it from literary analysis.
Year 9 and 10 students prepare for passage-based essays on Ozymandias and other poems, building both poetic analysis and essay-writing skills.
Year 7 and 8 students close their Artemis unit having mastered the inquiry process, with Artemis II’s launch now on the horizon.
Year 9 students are mastering the art of summarising, while Year 10s are developing the deeper reading and paraphrasing skills needed for Cambridge assessments.
Year 7 students are exploring identity and belonging through Wonder, while Year 8s are analysing I Am Malala. Both year groups completed PAT assessments in Week 5.
Year 9s are mastering summary and paraphrasing skills. Year 10s are working through Cambridge-level comprehension, learning how to use evidence, inversion, and concision to lift their answers.
Year 9s are building annotation and active reading skills. Year 10s are exploring the difference between Language and Literature in the Cambridge two-year programme.
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