Who said that teenagers don’t behave in school anymore?
It is a privilege to be invited into secondary schools to tell students about my journey to becoming a writer. I’m impressed by how intently pupils listen as I read extracts of my novel, Kiss of the Tsunami. It’s great to be back in the classroom, but this time as an author, not a teacher. As I love both writing and teaching, giving presentations to groups of up to sixty pupils is both challenging and fun.
The powerpoint slides include notes and sketches I made whilst researching the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami and the Moken people. Pupils ask thoughtful questions and enjoy making domino runs to illustrate that a story has to flow with events being in the right order, one plot point leading to another.
I tell pupils that my grandparents were the inspiration which lead me to start writing poems as a child, progressing to short stories, plays and novels. It is never too late to achieve your dream!
Hearing that Kiss of the Tsunami has inspired students to write poetry has been a highlight. When one girl showed me her epic poem, she told me that she had written it straight after reading my book. The other girl had visualised the horrific scene of the wall of water as she had listened to my story, then she had written a poem, cleverly concluding it with the title of my novel. Congratulations on your creativity, girls! Now let’s see what the lads can do!
Feedback has been excellent, both during and after the Reading Weeks. On 8th March 2017, Mrs Elsa Melville wrote, “We welcomed local author Rachel Rivers Porter to the school and she gave an excellent presentation to years 7-10 about how she wrote her latest novel, Kiss of the Tsunami. Students were engaged throughout, and they all enjoyed her reading key extracts from the novel, which tells the story of the 2004 Boxing Day Tsunami.”
It is encouraging that several staff have said that they are interested in using Kiss of the Tsunami in their schools to discuss issues raised in the novel. Next project: Kiss of the Tsunami Teacher’s Guide!
At my first author talk, when a pupil asked me to sign his copy of my book, I was thrilled. I can remember queuing to ask Michael Morpurgo to sign his book and it is an honour to be on the other side of the table! Here I am enjoying a book signing event at the library.