ENGLISH: Author inspires our budding young writers

BUDDING young Ripon Grammar School writers enjoyed an inspirational visit from a fascinating Yorkshire author and traveller.

Following a creative workshop with Anna Greenwood, who gathers tales from rural communities in the Yorkshire Dales and further afield, members of our Wordsmiths club are now all working on stories of their own.

Having written about everyone from gypsy wagon makers, miners, hill farmers, blacksmiths and caravan site owners for her book The Rural Voice, Anna gave the Year 7 pupils an insight into the art of interviewing.

Student Olympia Dunn explains: “She gave us many interesting tasks to do and we had a lot of fun. The first thing we did was learn each other’s names, but we did it in some pretty interesting ways.

“We went outside to look at the trees and how they move in the wind. We created some slightly odd and unique dances to imitate these motions. We wrote short paragraphs from the tree’s perspective on an average day.

“We swapped paragraphs with one or two other people and read out our favourite sentences to the group. We then looked at woodlice in a box and soon after that, wrote from the person’s perspective, the box’s perspective and the woodlouse’s perspective.

“We talked about interviewing and open and closed questions after a quick biscuit and juice break. We then ended the day by writing down some questions you might ask someone in an interview.”

The 18 pupils who took part are now busy working on their own writing project, interviewing local people and writing about life at RGS.