Angela offers workshops and masterclasses for all age groups from nursery to adult. She has expertise in A level Literature and A level Lang Lit as well as GCSE.
She can be booked through The Windows Project, The Poetry Society and Artscape, or through contacting her personally.
anji.topping@homecall.co.uk
Fee per day is £250.
Half a day £125.
English Monologue Workshop
AS English Lang/Lit students were in for a real treat on Friday 27th November as external speaker Angela Topping came in to deliver a workshop on writing monologues. Angela is the author of an impressive range of published texts, including her own original poetry and critical material on literary texts, as well as being an experienced teacher and A Level examiner.
Using her skills as a writer, Angela inspired students to create voices for their monologue characters which will be used in their Unit 2 coursework. She put teacher Helen Chappell on the spot by asking her to create a character from scratch, hot seating her at the front of the class with no warning and no preparation (note from Helen – now I know what it feels like to be a student!). Students then went on to create their own characters, and to imagine what it might be like to suffer from a phobia – for example, fear of lifts, fear of open spaces, fear of buttons, fear of toasters (!) – and how this might affect their characters’ lives. Angela gave lots of useful advice on creating authentic voices and on keeping a running commentary log – all skills which will be essential when the groups come to write their AS coursework.
Students agreed that they liked the experience of working with different people and coming up with collaborative ideas, and they all feel enthused to create truly original and idiosyncratic characters for their own monologues. Watch this space – we might even publish some of them!
Helen Chappell
