Duration: 1.5 – 2 hours or full-day TPL workshop
Suitable for: High school teachers

Workshop overview

Teachers across all faculties are aware of the importance of developing student writing as a means to both enhance analytical and communicative skills, as well as fostering self-confidence. The research is clear – “Writing is a core literacy skill that all students need to master to be able to function effectively in school, the workplace, and the community. It is also a major focus of national educational bodies.” (Students’ motivation and engagement in writing: Do they have the ‘write’ stuff?, Education Matters (journal), 2016); Professor Andrew J. Martin and Dr Rebecca J. Collie (School of Education, University of New South Wales, Australia) and Dr Jen Scott Curwood (Faculty of Education and Social Work, University of Sydney, Australia).

The research is also clear that the best outcomes are possible when students are engaged and motivated to write.

So how does a teacher engage students to write often and in a manner that is rewarding and enhances student proficiency and confidence? Moreover, how can we as teachers create opportunities for regular writing within a classroom context and provide students with timely feedback in a way that is sustainable?

This Professional Learning session will:

• briefly review the evidence regarding the efficacy of regular writing opportunities to ALL students across ALL subject areas;
• show how an integrated approach to writing (combining both creative and information-based modes of writing) can engage students across all subjects;
• provide teachers with a range of approaches for increasing student writing in the classroom, ranging from quick and easy game-based strategies to note-taking to ways of using scope and sequence planning to foster writing skills.
• show how to structure extended writing tasks so that teachers can provide feedback in a sustainable manner. This final point is of particular importance as the ultimate aim is to ensure student mastery in writing extended responses, and as any Stage 6 English teacher will tell you, it takes time to read multiple draft essays and provide timely feedback without ending up exhausted.

Duration: 1.5 – 2 hours
Suitable for: Teachers of Stage 2 – 6

Workshop overview

This 1.5 – 2hr session is designed specifically for teachers looking to expand their knowledge, understanding, skills, and confidence when it comes to teaching creative writing.

The session is full of practical tips, useful classroom strategies, and assessment suggestions for creative writing tasks (and their rubrics).

Suitable for teachers of Stage 2-6, this TPL session builds on both the English Textual Concepts model and the Syllabus requirements across secondary English. In short, you’ll learn how to scaffold the teaching of creative writing across Stages (and when transitioning from primary to secondary school), as well as how to ensure students are engaged, encouraged, and building on prior learning.

This Professional Learning session will:

• outline the core elements of the English Textual Concepts model
• align creative writing complexity with cognitive development
• provide numerous strategies for teaching creative writing
• demonstrate how best to assess creative writing tasks