St Cecilia’s Primary School in Wyong had a special visitor on June 9, when author, Dr Cameron Stelzer, also known as The Story Doctor, came to present a workshop about creative writing to stage three students.
About 160 students from the school from Years 3-6 participated in the workshop where Stelzer taught them the basics of creative writing, how to come up with their ideas and some basic illustration techniques.
Stelzer, who has penned 23 children’s books, said his visit to St Cecilia’s was very pleasant where the students were very keen to participate.
“It went really well, we did a lot of creative writing and a bit of illustration work,” he said.
“In the workshop, we gave the kids some inspiration to do some creative writing which they all really engaged with and came up with some good stuff.
“In the morning session I worked with 160 kids where we did some writing activities and drawings and in the afternoon I worked with some of the advanced Year 6 students to further develop their writing skills.”
Stelzer visits more than 120 schools annually to run these workshops and he said students on the Coast were very easy to engage.
“The day after the workshop, I came into the school to pick up some things and a few of the students spotted me and came up to show me the stories and drawings they had been working on,” he said.
“The teachers also told me how excited all the students were, and how much more engaged they were with their writing.”
Some books Stelzer has written include the Pie Rats series, the Scallywags series, the School of Scallywags series, The Stroodle series and various drawing books such as How to Draw Dragons.
Harry Mulholland