Week 3 Term 3 - English Department: Literacy Strategy - Create a Pathway (August 8 - 12)

Student engagement with writing can be a hit or miss. At the beginning of Term 1 our Year 9 and Year 10 students completed various tests, most notably the EAsttle Writing test. What we (English Department) noticed with our student's writing was that most of them did not complete it, when we questioned our students as to why they did not complete it, they responded with "we don't like writing so we just did anything" and "I don't know how to write so I just did whatever". My Year 9 English class - for the most part - did engage well with the writing and did the bare minimum when it came to writing. In reflection, I thought WHY - WHY are the students disengaged with writing? There are a few conclusions that I came to in my reflection starting with the impact of the last two years with lockdown and because of this, the gap in their writing and literacy overall has widened. 

So what is the solution to the problem? A shared goal for the English Department is that we want to explore effective literacy strategies that our students can connect to. We also want to learn from and use the literacy and language experts that we have at school so that we can upskill at the same time. In Term 2, Mr Milford worked with 2 of our Year 9 class going through the Reading Skills program and Dr Jannie introduced the Crafted Writing Program to three of our Year 9 class. Both programs were prioritized over our regular term planning and the students went through an intensive 3 - 4 week period focusing on the literacy. For my Year 9 class (9TNi) they went through a 3 week intensive with the Crafted Writing Program led by Dr Jannie. Following this, Ms George introduced the students her unit - Create a Pathway. The premise of the unit is to create a story and an online book. There are five phases in the unit. The first three main features of the unit are as follows: 

The first three phases of Ms George's 'Create a Pathway' Unit

The first three phases of the unit require the students to CREATE. Ms George spent time with 9TNi to go through first three phases and to get them started with creating their story. 

• Pick your genre: Ms George explained the concept of genre and encouraged the students to choose a genre that their story will be centered around. This was done through a class discussion. She also describe and explained what types of genre there are. Students were encouraged to mix genres if they felt the need to. 

• Create your main character: Once the students chose their genre they then moved onto the main character. Ms George explained the four main features of the main character - name, age, ability and powers. Students were encouraged to create their character online so that they could have full design control over their character. 

• Create a map: The next phase is to create a map. The purpose of the map is to give your genre and character, a setting and a place to belong. With this phase the students can start to map out their story - where their character comes from, where the main action or story takes place and where it ends. At this point the students have not started any writing the story - they have chosen their genre, created their character and map. Ms George introduced the first three phases to hook the students and for 9TNi, they were definitely hooked into the unit. 

Student work: Character + Map for the Create a Pathway Unit

Ms George gave the students about a week and a half to work through the first three phases. When I inherited the unit, I extended it for a little bit longer as some students wanted to create more than one character while others had really complex maps that they wanted to complete. Once phase one, two and three were finished the students then worked on phase four which was - crafting the text. 

• Crafting the text: The students had spent 4 weeks prior to this unit, working with Dr Jannie and the Crafted Writing Program. In this program the students learnt the basic elements in crafting a text - independent clauses, dependent clauses, prepositions, prepositional phrases and sentence structure (short, medium and long).  Going into the Create a Pathway unit, fresh off the Crafted Writing Program gave the students good leverage. They were able to start crafting their text confidently because they were aware of the basic and fundamental elements needed to craft a text. The non-negotiable features for the writing that I shared with my students were:

The writing had to have a combination of independent/dependent clauses

A variation of sentence types (short, medium and long)

The writing needs to include metaphors, personification, imagery and similes (at least)

Contrast needs to be included in the writing - contrasting point of view, description of scenery, values - it helps to make the writing interesting

The non-negotiable features were the only conditions that I gave to the students. I wanted them to craft their text freely and without too many conditions. The students really enjoyed this part of the process and I gave them two and half weeks to plan, craft and edit their writing. Near the end of phase four the students spent time reading each other's work and sharing their work to the class - in the hope that it would ignite some creative inspiration to their peers. 

Student work: Crafted text during phase four

Now that phase one, two, three and four are well underway, it is now time to implement phase five. The students have now spent time creating and crafting their text. Phase five is about combining all of those elements and creating their online book. We used the app www.bookcreator.com - it is user friendly, the students can use their school email as their login and they are able to navigate their way through the design templates quite easily. The students were given a link to join my group on bookcreator and I was able to walk through the process with them whilst they were creating their book online. This phase was one that the students really enjoyed because they were able to pull everything that they have created and crafted. The element of ownership and control was exciting and liberating for them. 

Student Work

Student Work

Student Work

Writing is always going to be an important life skill that we need to have. Writing allows us to communicate, express and connect with the world. The Create a Pathway Unit is built to create a space for students to explore, enjoy and find creative freedom in writing. The students thoroughly enjoyed this unit (so much so that they want to do it again this term). Their engagement with writing (through this unit) shifted and I felt that they were more engaged with it because they were in control of it. They were more engaged with it because they had the freedom to create a character and a world on their conditions. For many of my students - the work that they produced in this unit surpassed what they did in Term 1 with their writing. The confidence and eagerness to create and craft a text is definitely a highlight for me this year. I want to thank Ms George for creating and introducing this awesome unit to the students. It was a mana-enhancing experience for them and for that, I am grateful to Ms George to sharing this gift with us. I am definitely going to do this again!