Fictional Fun with Author Steve Cole

Children’s author, Steve Cole, is best known for his tales of amusing adventures and science fiction sagas. On the Park, he is adored as our Patron of Reading, a post that comes with the responsibility of highlighting the joy of literacy!

On Wednesday 4^th May, Steve brought his fighting spirit to the classroom when he delivered a series of workshops to Year 7. His lively and humorous anecdotes captured the imaginations of all, before students worked with Steve to build up a fictional combat scene from a very simple plotline. As adjectives, thought processes and action was added, volunteers took to the floor to re-enact the scene, their performances transformed with the magic of superb narrative voice and vocabulary. Students then worked in pairs as they were tasked to take a new plotline and enhance it using the techniques and skills learnt.

“It’s really valuable for students to experience these external author workshops because it gives them a new perspective on their writing and they get to learn from someone who does it for a living.” commented Librarian, Grace Ritchie.

She continued, “I think today students most enjoyed re-enacting the fight scenes. Action scenes feature quite a bit in Steve’s books and so that has been a big influence and inspired the workshops. I’m looking forward to reading all the stories; I think there’s going to be some interesting characters in them!”

Following the workshops Year 7 student, Rohan, enthused “I thought it was really good, it was really interactive and really fun. I enjoyed making the story with my friends and having a bit of fun.” Alfie added, “I thought it was really fun it was quite interactive which I really enjoyed!”

Steve reflected, “That was great fun, there was lots of imagination on display and lots of humour which alleviated any of the unpleasantness that could come with the action. A lot of it was more fantasy orientated than realistic but that made it great fun to read aloud and for everyone to enjoy.”