1. Making the most of opportunities to strengthen learners’ writing Paora Howe

2. Overview of webinar Key ideas: – Learners need to see themselves as writers & understand what motivates them to write and work on their writing – Practice is critical, so it’s important that learners find things to write about and get started – Learners need to be deliberately taught to transfer their writing skills from one context to another

3. Seeing themselves as writers Emails, texts, notes – what else will make them see themselves as writers? Compare lists What in common? What different? Proud of what? What is ‘good writing’ to you? Appreciative enquiry process.

4. You’re a writer too Educators are writers too. What’s your list look like? Start writing with them – model a process Talk aloud Ok to make mistakes

5. Understanding what motivates them Explore potential topics to write about What do they like doing? Provide contexts for writing Acknowledge real life experiences first

6. Understanding what motivates them What interests? Build group topic lists to refer to Provide good contexts – good readings and writings mena what? Acknowledge real life skills and knowledge

7. Making connections between reading & writing Narrow writing lists reflect narrow reading interests? Start suggesting broader ranges of reading

8. Questions & answers What questions do you have about getting learners to see themselves as writers?

9. Getting started Finding something to write about Take the brakes off What will spark internal debate? Write oodles without fear of red inking

10. Getting it down Start where the learners are at Creative vs functional writing What is ‘creative memory writing’? Write first. Talk later. Deciding what tools they like to use

11. Getting lots of practice Use social network sites Understanding writing as a process Importance of publishing

12. Questions & answers

13. Fit for purpose writing Writing with purpose Start from the pieces they have enjoyed working on that they have controlled from start to finish Your role is to know when to intervene – to show that all writing requires the use of the same rules and regulations Some have different rules because the audience or style or purpose is different

14. Authentic writing tasks Building on what they know they can do already Use their longer pieces Introduce different kinds of peer review Focus on different areas of skill improvement – refer progressions Take every opportunity to teach the metalanguage of writing

15. Developing their awareness Using the text to teach And to make them aware of their knowledge and skills so that they can apply them to different tasks e.g. writing sentences

16. finally Learners confident about themselves as writers with a repertoire that includes: – a process for getting started – a process for review – an awareness of the writing knowledge and skills they draw on when they write, so that they can apply these to other writing tasks

17. Questions & answers