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How Writing Instruction Can Revolutionize Education

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Morning Session in Australia: 7:30am (AEST) on Thursday 5 September
Afternoon session in the US: 4:30pm Central on Wednesday 4 September

NATALIE WEXLER

How Writing Instruction Can Revolutionize Education

Writing is a potentially powerful lever for deepening knowledge, improving reading comprehension and analytical thinking, and enabling all students to access grade-level material. But it’s also the most difficult thing we ask students to do. To unlock the power of writing instruction, we need to: (1) make writing less overwhelming by starting at the sentence level if that’s what students need; (2) teach grammar and writing conventions in the context of students’ own writing; and (3) embed writing activities in the content of the core curriculum—in any subject and at any grade level. This presentation will provide examples of effective activities.

This event will be facilitated by the Lead Organiser of the Think Forward Educators Writing Network: Jeanette Breen.

➡️Join the Writing Network here


Natalie Wexler

Natalie Wexler is an education writer and the author of The Knowledge Gap: The Hidden Cause of America’s Broken Education System—and How to Fix It (Avery 2019). She is also the co-author, with Judith C. Hochman, of The Writing Revolution 2.0: A Guide to Advancing Thinking Through Writing in All Subjects and Grades (Jossey-Bass 2024), and the host of “Reading Comprehension Revisited,” a six-episode series for the Knowledge Matters Podcast. Her articles and essays have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, The American Scholar, and other publications. She has a free Substack newsletter called Minding the Gap, and she lives in Washington, D.C.

Jeanette Breen

Jeanette is an experienced education practitioner from Victoria, Australia. In addition to her education role at Templestowe Heights Primary, she has joined UK based company No More Marking in using innovative writing assessment techniques, including Comparative Judgement. Jeanette works with schools to help realign writing instruction using data to sequence next steps.

Jeanette also leads a Writing Network with Think Forward Educators. She holds a Professional Certificate in Clinical Teaching and Masters in Instructional Leadership and can be contacted on: jeanette.breen@education.vic.gov.au or jeanette@nomoremarking.com or via twitter - Jeanette Breen - @jettybe3

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Teaching Fractions Using an Explicit CRA Approach

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The Best Word List is a Book!