how to- a book of instructions - june 6th workshops
DESCRIPTION
Voice on the Coast, yoouth literature festival, June 6th.TRANSCRIPT
PARTICIPANTS IN VOICES ON THE COAST 2011 PRESENT
By Participants in Voices on the Coast 2011
All text, images and information in this book is
Copyright
Judy Barrass and Contributors
2011
CONTRIBUTORS
Three Workshops June 6th
Judy Barrass
Sandy Johnson
Julie Boyle
Manon te Riele
Georgia
Brendan Boyd
Vasili Exahoz
Dan Hourigan
Molly
Anonymous
Immanuel Lutheran College, Buderim, and the University of the
Sunshine Coast present the award winning youth literature festi-
val Voices on the Coast for South-East Queensland students at
the University of the Sunshine Coast in Queensland, Australia each
autumn/early winter.
The aim of the festival is to inspire young people to enjoy the
world of reading, writing, drawing and performing through their ex-
periences each year.
This book has been compiled from contributions made by partici-
pants in Judy Barrass’s workshop at the 2011 festival ‘Low Tech
to High Tech’.
More information about Voices on the Coast can be found on the
festival website at
http://www.voicesonthecoast.com.au/
INTRODUCTION
The ‘High tech to Low tech’ workshop is about simple ways to
put your writing up on the internet.
The workshop is also about how to build a ‘story’. You don’t
need imagination and you don’t need a storyline before you
begin. This is about sharing information.
The purpose of most of what we read and write is to share
information.
Many people earn their living by writing. They include journal-
ists, people who write manuals, textbooks and instructions,
speech writers., and public servants.
Think about all the things you read. Magazines, newspapers,
labels, blogs, wikipaedia, advertising, history notes, the corn-
flakes packet, the small print on your credit card statement,
and the instructions on how to use your new Playstation.
Someone has to write all that stuff.
So for this exercise participants in
the workshop are asked to forget
about being creative and arty and
thinking up cool imaginative stories,
and to just to write information.
They were asked to pretend they
were writing for a magazine or a
newspaper or a letter, that the
‘story’ is information they need to
get across to the reader.
Mmmm
What will
I write?
They gathered their information by asking the sorts of
questions journalists ask when they are putting together a
news story.
WHO
WHAT
WHERE
WHY
WHEN
HOW
A story can be written on almost any subject by answering
these questions. It sometimes helps to pretend you are be-
ing interviewed by a reporter. Or better still, pretend you
are the reporter writing a story for a magazine. Or a blog.
Now tell me every-
thing. Who, what,
where, why, when,
how?
The subject for this book is ‚How to — A
Book of Instructions for Lots of
Things‛
Each participant in the workshop was asked to
prepare at least one page of writing for the
book, telling us how to do something. Images
could also be included.
The pages were photographed during
the workshop session, transferred
to a computer and uploaded to make
a virtual on-line book.
Thank you to everyone who partici-
pated and contributed to the book.
We hope you enjoy finding out how
to do things.
