10 July 2019

Image of SLiCE "We are Reading" Festival

Over the last three weeks, LSA has been host to a "raft" of authors (there appears to be no accepted collective noun for a group of writers, although Non Pratt has suggested a "scribble"!) as part of our SLiCE "We are Reading" Festival. Students from year 7 to 10 have been working with professional authors (Alan Gibbons, Bali Rai, Dan Worsley and Non Pratt), practitioners from Burnley Youth Theatre and inspirational slam poet The Dreadlock Alien: Richard Grant.  Activities have ranged from writing and performing their own poems, to workshops developing our pupils' skills in writing dialogue with author Non Pratt, developing characterisation with local Blackpool Author Dan Worsley and writing to develop plot and character with Alan Gibbons. With Bali Rai, pupils were fascinated to hear his stories of life growing up in Leicester, the UK's most multi-cultural city, and were encouraged to challenge assumptions, racism and ignorance.

Our main goal has been to encourage reading for pleasure and the library is happy to report that our chosen authors' books have been flying off the shelves. Some pupils were lucky enough to receive a gift of a signed book and our Million Word Readers have attended Author events at Ansdell Library in the evening too.

A huge thanks to all the authors and to our Library staff here at LSA and at Ansdell Library for all their help, support and organisation!

We are reading festival