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story island programs
Content summaries for Story Island's four eight-week, in-school creative storytelling programs. Our in-school storytelling programs are all about confidence, creativity and celebration. In Story Island workshops, young people are empowered to create their own stories, expressing themselves in a range of genres and themes.
A Trunk Full of Stories
What’s in the trunk? … In this eight-week workshop program, students learn new skills in observation, creative risk-taking, character development, narrative structure and more, drawing inspiration from mysterious objects hidden away in the drawers and compartments of our custom travelling storyteller’s trunk (commissioned for Story Island from Tasmanian wood designer Linda Fredheim).
Students use objects from the trunk as creative prompts to generate story ideas. Guest illustrator Leigh Rigozzi appears in some workshops to inspire students with visual storytelling.
Students learn new skills in narrative structure, story arcs, vivid descriptions and magical metaphor. Each student ends the program with a short story which is professionally published in a class anthology. Every student becomes a published author!
Choose Your Own Adventure!
In this eight-week workshop program, each student creates their own, unique illustrated adventure/fantasy story using a branched narrative structure. Each story twists and turns, with two or more different endings. Students pick a theme for their story, then work on character development – creating ripping yarns full of fantasy and adventure. Each student ends the program with a branched-narrative short story that is professionally published in a class anthology… every student becomes a published author!
Little Mysteries of Me
Everyone has a story to tell. We lead ordinary lives, but our experiences are anything but ordinary. The Little Mysteries of Me eight-week workshop program encourages students to articulate concepts of self, identity and personal history to create an autobiographical short story in written or graphic form. This complex task is broken down into dynamic, interesting exercises that engage students and offer them new skills in narrative structure, descriptive language, dialogue, metaphor and other powerful storytelling skills.
Throughout the program, students embark on a quest of self-discovery, resulting in an increased sense of autonomy, competency, positive achievement and reward in relation to creative literacy. Students leave with a completed written or multimodal narrative focusing on an aspect of their life, which will be professionally published in a class anthology… Every student becomes a published author!
Sense In Nonsense
In this eight-week workshop program, each student accepts a challenge to create their very own ‘nonsense island’, complete with towns, landmarks and inhabitants. Along the way, they discover interesting, playful and bizarre language concepts, and develop visual literacy, create meaningful links between text and illustrations.
The program engages and empowers each student to experiment with literacy and explore their developing creative writing skills, exploring language forms including morphemes, homophones, Spoonerisms and puns. Guest Illustrator Leigh Rigozzi mentors students in visual literacy in four of the eight workshops.
Each student finishes the program with a fully illustrated map of their imaginary island, annotated with descriptions of its climate, population centres and weird, wacky inhabitants. They also write a ‘letter in a bottle’, which describes the island, its inhabitants and issues either a plea for rescue, or a request for supplies so they can stay on the island longer! This text and the illustrated map are professionally published in a class anthology… Every student becomes a published author!
Credits for images on this page: Jillian Mundy Photography; The Story Island Project
Please note: Parent/guardian approval and student permission was sought, provided and documented prior to photographs of children and young people being taken.