On Monday 6th November, Steve came into the school to carry out a workshop, working with the transition year students. My class found it refreshing for a man like Steve to deliver this workshop as he was funny, relatable and supportive. As we felt at home, it was easier to pose questions out in front of the class without worrying about judgment.
We started the morning with Steve talking to us about what poetry is and how we admire it everyday without realising it, whether that be through the means of a song, a lyric or even a rap. We were given different writing exercises to help get our brains in gear, while having fun in the process. The opinions expressed in these exercises often opened up gender debates, regarding both our opinions of the opposite gender and those of our own.
After these exercises, Steve showed us two different videos which both had lyrical content, he used this content as an example of modern poetry. These videos, one about teen-age pregnancy and the other about bullying acted as stimuli to later compose our own poem or master piece.
After break, we returned to the workshop where we logged onto the Inspireland website where we inputted our poems. Steve then gave us feedback on our poems and told us where we could improve, possible words we could include on second draft and how we can use our words to paint a poetic picture. I found that this workshop was beneficial to me as I would imagine that my level of english would improve and it made me more enthusiastic towards poetry in general. I learned plenty of new skills I can apply in the future to my writing and I would recommend this workshop to transition year students in the future.
We started the morning with Steve talking to us about what poetry is and how we admire it everyday without realising it, whether that be through the means of a song, a lyric or even a rap. We were given different writing exercises to help get our brains in gear, while having fun in the process. The opinions expressed in these exercises often opened up gender debates, regarding both our opinions of the opposite gender and those of our own.
After these exercises, Steve showed us two different videos which both had lyrical content, he used this content as an example of modern poetry. These videos, one about teen-age pregnancy and the other about bullying acted as stimuli to later compose our own poem or master piece.
After break, we returned to the workshop where we logged onto the Inspireland website where we inputted our poems. Steve then gave us feedback on our poems and told us where we could improve, possible words we could include on second draft and how we can use our words to paint a poetic picture. I found that this workshop was beneficial to me as I would imagine that my level of english would improve and it made me more enthusiastic towards poetry in general. I learned plenty of new skills I can apply in the future to my writing and I would recommend this workshop to transition year students in the future.