Newsletter Term 3, Week 3 28 July 2022

The main event for students in Years 7-10 was an author talk from acclaimed middle and young adult fiction author, Nova Weetman. Nova described her career as an author starting with work in television. She mentioned that she had been one of the original writers on the television series H2O, which caused the students to break into the theme tune, much to her pleasure. After creating stories from other people’s ideas for TV, Nova decided to write her own stories and so moved into novel writing. She talked about her creative process, particularly using her own experiences of growing up. Then she worked with the students to create a character as a group and gave them time to create a character on their own. Nova’s talk was perfectly pitched to each year level. The students created some fascinating and surprising characters which they could use in the micro-writing competition.

Year 12 students enjoyed a visit from Rosalie Ham, the author of The Dressmaker arranged by Mrs Joubran. Rosalie discussed how she created the work, particularly the inspirations from her own life, and the ways that her creative writing course encouraged her to develop her own style. She made some interesting comments about the pressure from publishers and from film producers to create a feel-good ending. It was a fascinating and generous insight into her creative techniques and gave the girls much to think about as they study the text.

During the week, two competitions ran in the Knowledge Exchange and the Tay Creggan Library. Students were asked to match teachers to their favourite childhood and teenage books, from pictures posted on the KE and TC windows. Congratulations to Sarah Le Get for the highest number of matches in the KE and to Olivia Elliott at TC. We also sliced up copies of the opening pages of two books, one a great classic and the other one of the most popular YA series in recent years and put them into jars. Students had to try and guess the books. Congratulations to Alessandra Veo, Thea Lukito, Amelia Allen, Lizzy Henry, Zoe Langlands, Oliva Elliott, Emma Pitkanen and Isabella Osborn, who all spotted that the books were Jane Eyre and One of us is Next.

Finally, on Friday the Knowledge Exchange hosted the Literature Week Trivia Quiz. The quiz was ably hosted by Kate Henry, and Lee Tsourvakis and Hannah Geary managed the scores. There were five rounds of questions and five teams, including one of teachers, competed. The competition was fierce. Despite some excellent challenges and tactical play from the student teams, the teachers won in the end. Congratulations to everyone who competed. It was a fitting end to Literature Week.

Penny Roberts, Director of Library and Research

But what exactly is micro-fiction you may ask, and more importantly, how does one go about writing a micro story? Micro or flash fiction as it is sometimes called is an emerging mode of writing that is growing in popularity among writers and readers alike. Micro-fiction is defiant. It defies standard length, parameters, and expectations. Micro-fiction is often identified by the surprising twists that take place. It is particularly well-suited to our fast-moving world, where we regularly consume bite-sized online texts via a swipe or scroll of our screens. But don’t let the brevity of flash fiction fool you. At their very core, these stories offer profound and intriguing insights that will both delight and fascinate readers.

The process of writing micro or flash fiction is an exercise in both creativity and self-restraint, which may seem like a contradiction of terms, yet perfectly describes the process of taking an imagined idea and distilling it into a “micro”cosm of its original self. The first step in writing micro-fiction is to establish your creative process. Start by considering the purpose, audience and context of your story. Next, brainstorm, write, analyse and edit. Remember, that when writing micro-fiction what is not revealed or told is just as important as what you choose to reveal in the story. And don’t forget to find a place where you like to write. The environment in which you work can have a powerful impact on your creative process. The Writing Cooperative website has some wonderful and inspiring photographs of famous authors and their writing spaces https://medium.com/writing-cooperative/100-famous-authors-and-their-writing-spaces-8ee25c50c927

Now that you know more about micro-fiction, I encourage all students to pick up a pen (or fire up a laptop!) and write a story in 300 words or less. The topic or theme of your micro-story is up to you. There are also some terrific gift card prizes to be won! Entries close on Friday 9th September and you may enter more than one story via the link: https://forms.office.com/r/s67XMuejuK 

Carolyn Joubran, Head of English

Items in the Career News include:

• Dates to Diarise in Term 3

• Bachelor of Accident Forensics at CQ University

• News from the Australian Catholic University

o ACU Guarantee 2023

o Diploma Courses as Pathways to Bachelor Degrees

• Studying Medicine at the University of Adelaide

• Career as a Paramedic

• Bachelor of Business Administration at Monash University

• Deakin University: Bachelor of Arts – Looking a little Different

• Health Science Degrees in Victoria in 2022

• Science Degrees in Victoria in 2022

• Snapshot of the University of New South Wales (UNSW) in 2022

On Tuesday during Envision we ran our Prototype/customer feedback session and were delighted by the progress many businesses have made. The problem solving and decision making have both been exceptional. We have also pointed out to students that creating a business is not a race, and business owners are far better to spend time developing their product and getting it right than launch with a mediocre product. Learning how to "fail" and rebound is a worthwhile life lesson, one that some of our Year 9s are experiencing and rising above. It is worth noting that prior to launch, businesses must complete an extensive list of requirements, ranging from information gathering tasks, to learning how to manipulate information on spreadsheets to keep track of finances. 

This weekend would be a good time for Year 9 families to discuss Envision logistics -running a business alongside school and co-curricular studies is demanding and parental involvement, decision-making and advice can often be needed. We have also appreciated seeing the Investor agreements (from supportive families) being signed and businesses including this income on their balance spreadsheet.

On a separate note, we have made the difficult decision to move the Tay Creggan Open House to an online only event. We feel that this will potentially impact our Campus far less given there is still covid and illness in the community. Our main objective is to provide our Year 9 students with their full Year 9 experience. 

Kind regards,

Karyn 

Tay Creggan, our Year 9 campus, is proudly part of Open House Melbourne 2022. This event will now be held online.

Take a virtual tour of the magnificent heritage building, Tay Creggan, and learn about its interesting history narrated by a Strathcona Girls Grammar student.
You can also take a tour of Tay Creggan in Minecraft. This has been cleverly created by two of our Year 9 students.

More information will be available closer to the day on our website.

You are warmly invited to the next Strathcona Centre for Learning Futures event with guest Speaker, Tay Pappas.

Tay Pappas will speak about her fascinating international experience helping to build a range of businesses, leading to her current role as General Manager at Kip&Co. This will provide participants with insight into what it takes to build a company’s brand and the kinds of opportunities young people can explore as they build their own careers. Tay is looking forward to questions from the audience.

Tay Pappas is the General Manager of indie lifestyle brand Kip&Co. She has deep experience in retail and strategy and a passion for building incredible Australian brands. Tay began her career as a Management Consultant at Boston Consulting Group, before taking on strategy roles with the Just Group in Melbourne and pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk in Copenhagen. She joined Mecca Brands in 2012 to lead the four-person merchandise team, and in her eight years with Mecca helped to scale the business across strategy, store development and buying, finally returning to the Head of Merchandise role with a team of 45. In 2020 she joined Hairhouse Warehouse as Chief Commercial Officer, driving the merchandise strategy and Hairhouse’s private label brands.Pursuing her love of brand building, Tay joined Kip&Co in 2021 in the newly created role of General Manager, to work with the founders to scale the business, drive rapid growth and sustainably bring colour and fun to homewares and apparel for every corner of the home and every member of the family. Tay lives in Balaclava with her husband and three girls, and loves travel, food and all types of music.

We look forward to welcoming you to this event