Connect with schools and educators committed to improving writing instructional practice.
The Writing Network
Think Forward Educators is excited to announce our latest endeavour - the creation of a Writing Network to bring alignment to best practice in teaching, learning and the science of Writing.
We launched our network with a hugely successful webinar collaboration with Daisy Christodoulou, Director of Education at No More Marking and author of several highly regarded books including 'Making Good Progress? The Future of Assessment for Learning' and 'Teachers vs Tech'.
Join the discussion on our latest blog posts, and join us at the next interactive Network Connect session.
One of the questions we have had from members of the TFE Writing Network has been related to genre teaching. Teaching writing in the context of genres is a common practice in Australia particularly due to our curriculum progressions that specify across several year levels: an expectation that students will be able to produce ‘imaginative, informative and persuasive’ texts. In Victoria this is first mentioned in Year 1.
This was highlighted when a friend recently called me during one of our lockdowns, frustrated at watching her Year 2 daughter cry during an online writing lesson where she was required to come up with a problem, solution and list of characters. Why was this so hard for her and why was I not surprised having seen this many times in an early years classroom? An understanding of genres is important. We know it makes a difference and students need to be able to write about different topics and create specific compositions. So perhaps the problem lies in the way we teach it.
I once had a student who loved rhinos. After all, what's not to love? During ‘free choice’ writing sessions (the opportunity for students to engage and communicate across genres of their choice), this student continued to write about rhinos in several formats. There was the narrative on rhinos, the persuasive, the poem – both Acrostic and Haiku.
His writing was engaging, passionate, showed an awareness of purpose and audience, but what niggled at me was that I wasn’t teaching him anything.
Actually, what I found was that my competent writers avoided authorial risks. They wrote texts where the topic was the focus, while writers who found writing challenging, continued to find it so. The struggle to engage was confronting.
Connect.
Join the movement of schools interested to improve their writing instructional practice and assessment.
Collaborate.
This is a growing space to increase your knowledge, bridge the gap between research and practice, and hear the narratives of other educators achieving great things in the teaching of writing.
We want to offer educators the opportunity to explore the science behind all the threads that bind together to create a rich writing framework. We want to provide you with practice that will set your students up to be successful writers and creators of quality text. Our aim is to cover the big ideas in writing as well as the incremental small steps that you can use in your classroom every day to make a difference to your students.
We look forward to sharing a space at TFE for collegiality, curiosity and quality writing practice. Please share your wonderings about writing.
Past events
Join us for this second talk on The Writing Revolution from TWR Co-CEOs Drs Toni-Ann Vroom & Dina Zoleo
A momentous Think Forward Educators event to super-charge your school's strategic planning for 2023. This in-person event is suitable for Leadership teams, and primary & secondary teachers, across all subjects. It is a session on the overarching principles around assessment and writing, and how to make measurement meaningful.
A unique networking and professional learning opportunity with one of the UK's most sought-after education authors, Daisy Christodoulou, and Literacy Expert and TFE founder, Dr Nathaniel Swain. Sessions in this Breakfast Masterclass will include:
- Creating effective assessments
- Improving Writing
- Bullet-Proof Instruction for Writing Success
A key goal of the Think Forward Writing Network is to open a conversation about writing in the classroom, using research, trialled techniques, assessment and data collection. Join us for another Network Connect Session! Let’s share expertise, discuss best practice, learn from each other!
A key goal of the Think Forward Writing Network is to open a conversation about writing in the classroom, using research, trialled techniques, assessment and data collection. Join us for another Network Connect Session! Let’s share expertise, discuss best practice, learn from each other!
A key goal of the Think Forward Writing Network is to open a conversation about writing in the classroom, using research, trialled techniques, assessment and data collection. Join us for the first Network Connect Session of 2022! Let’s share expertise, discuss best practice, learn from each other!
A key goal of the Think Forward Writing Network is to open a conversation about writing in the classroom, using research, trialled techniques, assessment and data collection. Join us for the Term 4Network Connect Session! Let’s share expertise, discuss best practice, learn from each other!
A key goal of the Think Forward Writing Network is to open a conversation about writing in the classroom, using research, trialled techniques, assessment and data collection. Join us for another Network Connect Session! Let’s share expertise, discuss best practice, learn from each other!
A key goal of the Think Forward Writing Network is to open a conversation about writing in the classroom, using research, trialled techniques, assessment and data collection. Join us for the first Network Connect Session! Let’s share expertise, discuss best practice, learn from each other!
Think Forward Educators is thrilled to welcome Daisy Christodoulou to speak with us. Join us for an evening with one of the world’s most influential educators. Daisy Christodolou will provide her take on some of her areas of expertise, including Effective instruction, Assessment, and Writing. Reserve your spot at this event now!
What is the best way of reporting assessment information to students & parents? This is a question I hear all the time, and it isn’t easy to answer. What we all want is an assessment system that is (a) accurate, (b) easy to understand, (c) not too time-consuming for staff, and (d) motivating for students. But these principles are all in conflict with each other.