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TEEL is a four-letter word
Before coming to Australia I’d never heard of TEEL, but as soon as I stepped into the classroom, I was confronted by this strange and menacing acronym. TEEL – Topic Evidence Explanation Link – is a scaffold for writing essay paragraphs. Of course, if you’re an English teacher, you don’t need me to tell you…
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Activity Spotlight: Text Walk
The Text Walk, also known as a chalk talk, is one of the foundational activities in our English classrooms. It serves as the basis for many of our other activities, and a springboard for discussion. Most importantly, the text walk is a means of getting students to engage with short extracts of texts for themselves,…
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Review: Coaching Teacher Writers
Each month I review a different text designed to help English teachers and faculty leaders to develop a robust and engaging curriculum. I’ll discus them primarily from the point of view of a teacher or leader in an Australian context and explore the balance between theory and practice. This post contains affiliate links. Coaching Teacher-Writers,…
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Effective Assessment and Feedback
Providing effective assessment and feedback can be simultaneously the most rewarding and the most time-consuming part of the job. Amongst the many benefits of feedback, we find improved student outcomes, greater understanding, even stronger relationships with students. But providing feedback can also become a burden on teachers already pressed for time with classroom, administrative, and…
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A World Without Mirrors
One of the most powerful comments I’ve heard about the importance of diversity and inclusion in English came from a panel during a VATE conference several years ago. The panel featured a number of speakers, including teacher-librarians and authors. During the panel, the main speaker echoed Rudine Sims Bishop, stating that growing up and never…
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Where Close Reading Meets Reader Response
Close reading is the cornerstone of an English curriculum. Not only does it offer an opportunity for student voice and interpretation, but it is also a platform for academic rigour and analysis. In the right hands, the close reading of limited excerpts of a text can be much more powerful than a superficial reading of…
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The General Capabilities: Where Next?
From their inception in 2008’s Melbourne Declaration to the first inclusion in the 2010 ACARA F-10 Curriculum the General Capabilities have sat alongside traditional subject areas such as English, Mathematics, Humanities and Science. The 2019 Mparntwe Declaration has now superseded the Melbourne Declaration and underpins the recent review of the Australian Curriculum. There are seven General…
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The worst sentence I ever wrote
The importance of teachers-as-writers cannot be understated, particularly in the English classroom. If you want students to be successful, you must be willing and able to model. The problem is, it can be incredibly daunting to stand in front of a class of students and just start writing. The good news: your students will benefit…
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Review: Reading Reconsidered by Doug Lemov, Colleen Driggs, Erica Woolway
Each month I will be reviewing a different text designed to help English teachers and faculty leaders to develop a robust and engaging curriculum. I’ll be discussing them primarily from the point of view of a teacher or leader in an Australian context, and exploring the balance between theory and practice. Disclosure: If you order…
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You’re doing coursework wrong: Why SACs are not exams
This post refers to the current 2016-2022 Study Design for Unit 3 and 4 VCE English. SACs are not examinations. Sounds obvious, but in my experience, School Assessed Coursework in English (and most other curriculum areas) is treated as a pared back version of the end-of-year examination. In fact, it’s so rare to find any…