Category: writing
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Teaching Writing with Generative AI
This post is based on a presentation I ran recently at the AATE conference. It takes the writing cycle approach from our book ‘Practical Writing Strategies‘ and applies Generative AI at various stages. One of the most pressing concerns at the recent Australian Association for the Teaching of English (AATE) conference was the implications of…
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Creating Texts: Stimulus Materials
Over the past few months we’ve started to see more supporting materials make their way to the VCAA Advice for Teachers pages for the 2024 English and EAL Study Design. One of the key additions has been the “stimulus materials” for Unit 3 Outcome 2: Creating Texts. The examples on the VCAA website – three…
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Teaching Writing: The Challenges
This is the second post in a series responding to feedback from my mailing list members. I asked people about the highs and lows of teaching writing: what do we enjoy the most, and what are the issues or concerns. I’ve received hundreds of responses to the surveys, and have broken them down into three…
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Teaching Writing: The Joys of Writing
This is the first post in a series responding to feedback from my mailing list members. I asked people about the highs and lows of teaching writing: what do we enjoy the most, and what are the issues or concerns. I’ve received hundreds of responses to the surveys, and have broken them down into three…
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Teaching Writing in the Age of AI: Reinventing English
This is the fifth and final post in the series Teaching Writing in the Age of AI. Check out the other posts in the series: In this series, I’ve explored how teaching writing might change as the adoption of Artificial Intelligence accelerates. Late 2022 was a watershed moment in AI, with ChatGPT pushing generative AI…
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Teaching Writing in the Age of AI: Assessment and “Cheating”
This is the fourth post in a series on Teaching Writing in the Age of AI. The first post provided an overview of some of the changes we’re facing as the number of AI writing tools increases. Post two covered conversations about academic integrity, and the third post offered some practical advice on teaching students…
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Using ChatGPT for Conferencing and Feedback
I’ve used conferencing for years as my main form of feedback and assessment. I stopped collecting piles of books, stopped writing margin notes that no-one ever read, and stopped correcting work like a human spell-checker. Aside from the hours of time saved by not “correcting” work, I also built stronger relationships with students as a…
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Teaching Writing in the Age of AI
With Victoria the latest state to ban ChatGPT, teachers everywhere are grappling with the implications of the large language model and the impact it will have on the classroom. We know that banning and blocking technology is – at best – a temporary solution. Students will find ways around the blocks, and teachers will be…
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Practical Writing Strategies: Sneak Peak
This is an extract from the introduction to Practical Writing Strategies. PWS is written by myself and Benjamin White, and will be published by Amba Press later this year. Introduction What is writing? When Leon wrote Practical Reading Strategies, he started with a seemingly simple question: what is reading? The question came from a Community…
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Getting Motivated for the Personal Response
This post refers to the new VCE English and EAL Study Design. However, the ideas about personal writing can be applied anywhere in the English curriculum where students are expected to respond personally to texts. Many schools in Victoria will be preparing for the new Unit 1 Reading and Exploring Texts outcome, the Personal Response.…