Luke Temple Author Visit

We have had the fantastic opportunity to be visited by Luke Temple the author. His Felix Dashwood books have gripped the entire school and they have written their very own chapter of Mutating Mansion! They are fantastic and the whole school were excited and wanted to read more from his series.

Yesterday, was amazing! We really enjoyed the book, the tasks we were set were really fun to complete and we really enjoyed writing our own chapter. The first five chapters of mutating mansion was very intriguing and I think a lot of us want to read on.

Nick Tozjek Author Visit

We had a fantastic day learning from a published poet: Nick Tozjek! Nick performed some of his poems for the whole school and explained how he had written them. He then carried out workshops with each year group where we created our own poems and performed them to everyone. We were very impressed with what the children produced and the super expression they used! 

Lindsay Littleson Virtual Author Visit

Here at WWJS, we had a virtual visit from Lindsay Littleton - a fantastic children’s author. She told us all about how she became an author, how much she loves to read and read us some extracts from her book. It was a really enjoyable session and we all learnt a lot about her. We have a waiting list to read her three books we’ve purchased for the school and are looking forward to her next book being published!

Class 6S wrote some super suspense stories which we sent to the author Lindsay Littleson and she has written a letter back to us! We were so pleased that she took the time to read our stories and even watched the clip we used as inspiration, and even more pleased that she was impressed with them! Well done everyone 😊

3 Westleigh Gate       

Uplawmoor

East Renfrewshire

   G784BB                                                                                                                                                                                 

Dear Mrs Slow and Class 6S, 

                                                   Thank you so much for sending me your suspense stories. I wasn't familiar with the tale of Francis Brandywine, so I watched the animation before reading your stories. The film version is tense and scary, and suspense is ramped up using anxiety-inducing music, dark backgrounds and the girl's increasingly frightened expressions. I wondered if you'd be able to achieve a similar level of tension and suspense using only words, but when I finished reading your stories, I felt amazed at how well you used tension building techniques and sophisticated vocabulary.

You all manage to set the scene brilliantly, with rich descriptions of the wood, the lake and the night sky. I loved all the interesting adjectives! Luminous, crystalline, velvety, ethereal sound so gorgeous, don’t they?

One of my favourite things about your pieces of writing was your effective use of similes (she nestled into the blanket contentedly like an animal hibernating in winter, the gnarled trees stood like silent sentinels).

The occasional use of alliteration (the heavenly, hectic horizon) and personification (the forest watched, the ice-cold whistling wind whispered secrets, golden sparks fizzed happily, the wind whispered a mournful story of summer’s end) really impressed me too.  

Appealing to all the senses is an excellent way of engaging the reader in the action, and many of you achieved that (the foliage rustled, leaves crunching and twigs snapping under her feet). I liked that you described the effects fear had on Francis’ body and mind (her quivering fingers, her shoulders tensed, her eyes widened, goosebumps formed on her arms, her mind raced). We can’t see Francis, as we can in the animation, but using your descriptions, the reader can create a picture in their own minds. Fabulous!

Many of you used speech to convey character and move the action on and this was well handled too. The unanswered questions (What's that noise? Who's there? What’s happening?) are very effective in getting the reader’s heart racing, as fear builds to a crescendo.  Short, sharp sentences (She froze. Then it came again.) and ellipses (Whatever it was, it had finally found her…) are used brilliantly too.

Huge well done to you all. I am so impressed by the quality of your suspense writing and your accurate spelling and beautiful handwriting. My spelling is okay, but my handwriting is truly awful. Thank goodness for computers!

My advice to any of you considering a career as an author would be to write regularly in different styles and genres. Practising and improving your craft is so important.  Choose subjects you feel passionate about. Accept positive criticism. Get your writing in front of an audience. Enter lots of competitions. Be confident and don’t give up. Being a published author doesn’t happen without hard work, but if you really want something, you must do your best to make it happen!

                                    Best wishes, Lindsay Littleson