English & Literacy

Reading

Our Independent Reading Programme at Wantirna College continues to flourish with our year 7 -9 students engaging in 20minutes of reading at the beginning of every English lesson. To further support our programme, we have dedicated volunteers who give up their time of an hour and a half a week with a class (the same class) to conduct reading workshops with them. Our wonderful volunteers have the opportunity to build some strong relationships with our students and support them in applying reading strategies to extend their reading skills. We are always looking for more volunteers to join our team, so please contact the school if you are interested.

Year 12 English

Next week our year 12 students will be sitting their first English SAC for the year. As our senior students finish school at lunch time on Wednesdays, it provides the perfect opportunity to schedule a SAC under proper exam conditions. We adopted this approach in the latter half of last year and we believe it was a contributing factor to improving student outcomes in English last year. Research tells us that ‘when a student tries to recall information in an exam, they will be able to recall it best if they learned it in an environment which is similar to the exam environment.’ (Context and State Dependent Memory, scienceofeducation, blogpost, 2013) Furthermore, having all of our students completing the SAC at the same time will ensure fairness and equity while developing their skills in unpacking essay questions in a timely fashion. This year we will be marking every SAC paper twice to ensure that our feedback to students is consistent and thorough.

We wish our year 12 English students all the best next week.

Writing

And finally, as I mentioned in the last newsletter, our students from year 7 to 12 have been given writer’s notebooks in each of their English classes. In most lessons, students are given prompts and ideas to write about in an effort to build their writing stamina and confidence. The notebooks are a place for students to take risks with their writing and to practise the skills that they are being taught in their lessons. They are about engaging our students to think and to be able to write about what they are thinking. We would encourage all parents to start conversations at home about what their child is writing about in their notebooks. You could even have a go at home with some of the prompts we are asking students to write about in class!

Writing Prompts:

1. What is one problem in our world that really needs to be fixed immediately?  Why is this issue so urgent?
2. Write about one problem or issue in our world that you see a solution for, and explain what you would do to fix it.
3. What do you plan to do after high school?  Why do you want to take this path?
4. Write about a time when someone told you something that changed your perspective.  What did they say, and why did it have such an impact on you?
5. Define what the world “responsibility” means to you.  Then, write about what you feel most responsible for.

Carrie Wallis

English/Whole School Literacy