Writer's Toolbox
This year at St. Stephen’s Catholic College, students in Years 7 – 9 are working with the Writer’s Toolbox online tool across all their subjects.
Writer’s Toolbox is an incredible program developed by Dr. Ian Hunter that teaches students how to improve their writing. As well as helping to make their writing more grammatically correct, it also helps them to make it more interesting, more fluent, and shows them how they can communicate their ideas more clearly which will enhance their communication across all curriculum areas. Using powerful artificial intelligence, students receive instant feedback as they write in areas such as spelling, precision and fluency when using the program.
In English classes this term, students are learning a new sentence type each week and being given an opportunity to learn more about it in the online learning modules. They are also engaging once a week – or more if they choose! – in the Daily Writing Challenge, which is a fun and interesting way for them to experiment with their writing.
So far this year, the majority of teachers on staff have been upskilled in the Writer’s Toolbox online tool, as a college wide effort to continue to improve the writing skills of our students. Literacy is freedom!
A college wide rollout of the program is planned for the next 3 years, with the aim to have every student in the college working on the program in all subject areas by 2027.
Kind regards,
Mrs Louise Messer | Teacher / Writing Coordinator