Meet the Early Harvest facilitator team
Our annual children’s publishing program Early Harvest will stop at nothing - not even a Stage 4 lockdown!
Instead, we are dynamically adapting the program for delivery via online media. The above video, in which the 100 Story Building team introduces themselves to the 15 young editors, is one way we are trying to build camaraderie and a sense of community among the young Early Harvest editors.
The 15 young editors will be meeting every Saturday via Zoom this term to put together our annual fiction book for young readers.
The social aspect of the program - where the editors (and 100 Story Building team) get to know each other and form friendships - is an important outcome of the program. It helps in building the confidence and sense of belonging of the young editors by giving them an opportunity to collaborate with like-minded creatives.
This is reflected in the feedback that young editors have given us over the years. Here are some of the things they said they learned through the program.
‘How to judge stories and be a team player.’
‘To always work together.’
‘Deciding things and debating.’
Our challenge this year is to ensure that these social learnings continue through online interactions.
However, delivering the program online has opened at least one new opportunity for us.
In the past years, we worked with young editors living in partnering postcodes to make it easy for them to catch up in-person every week over Term 3. This year, with the editors meeting online, we are able to bring together young creatives living as far apart as Dandenong and Mt Macedon.
We are excited to see what diverse life experiences and viewpoints this brings to the panel.
Early Harvest is a dynamic program for upper-primary students that gives them an in-depth experience of the publishing process. Under the program, we bring together an editorial board of Year 5 and 6 students who publish an annual fiction publication written by their peers.
View and buy all our previous fiction books from the program.
