‘Write with Kat’ is a new initiative that evolved due to a growing number of requests for Author visits ‘with a difference’ in the local Mackay region. Overwhelmed by the reaction to her first published children’s picture book; The cat with no tail – Kat quickly began devising a plan to structure her visits in a unique and captivating way that would be appealing to primary school students of all ages.
[read more=”Click here to Read More” less=”Read Less”]After ‘road testing’ a number of activities and workshop-styles in a casual manner at first, she began to hone in on the elements that were deemed most interesting and exciting by her target audience. The result is a myriad of age-appropriate sessions designed using Kat’s book as a learning module to study and observe character profiling and intent, hidden reading and writing tools, along with personalised author secrets for the budding wordsmith. Kat’s passion is to encourage students to read between the lines, and infer and interpret hidden messages in socially meaningful text. For the younger audience, Kat focusses primarily on deconstructing the pages of verse in a guided tutorial – students are encouraged to participate in a open forum and ask questions about the structure of discourse, the characters, plot development and publishing process. For the older audience, Kat ignites interest and involvement by taking the students on a story-telling journey whereby they must form small groups and create their own piece of creative writing. Using specialised models and tactics, they are invited to build upon their current knowledge of narrative structures and language by implementing new strategies to compose a body of ideas rich in dimension with purpose and flow. Always willing to push the envelope, no two sessions are the same; with Kat believing that the opportunity to teach is a constant education. “I am forever learning about what students find valuable and memorable in a classroom environment – I continue to focus on how I can make my visit relevant to the current social information they may be receiving on a daily basis, and how my time with them could make a valuable impact on how they view people, situations, and opportunities moving forward. To be kind at any cost is a fee we can all afford”.
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