The reformed GCSEs place greater demands on students' literacy skills in each subject. This workshop helps secondary school teachers to develop themselves as literacy experts to improve students’ literacy in their subject areas.
In line with recommendations from the EEF's Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools, this one-day workshop supports teachers to prioritise and to teach ‘disciplinary literacy’ across the curriculum.
Explore reciprocal reading and the Directed Activities Related to Texts (DARTS) approach. Examine approaches to teaching writing, modelling specific language features for improved writing - including discourse markers, the passive voice and nominalisation.
Transform informal, speech-like writing into a more formal written style so students can write like subject experts. Examine 'dictogloss' as a strategy to include nominalisation in formal writing.
Identify audience and purpose for different text types, recognising command words as indicators of specific writing conventions. Explore subject-specific language features, including tier 2 vocabulary that helps make students writing more coherent and cohesive.
Examine mark schemes from different subjects to identify assessment objectives. Identify key types of writing required. Develop the ability to write and model an extended GCSE answer for individual subjects.
The workshop takes place over one day.
The training is more effective when a cross-section of subjects are represented, so we encourage at least two teachers from each school (including the literacy lead) to attend.
Attendance includes a £25 discount on National Literacy Trust membership. Existing members receive a £25 discount on the workshop per school.
We are always looking for enthusiastic schools across the UK to host our training programmes. We ask you to:
In return, we offer a complimentary place on the course. This is also a great opportunity for you to position yourself as a research-led school.
Consider becoming a member of the National Literacy Trust to access our full library of downloadable resources and evaluation tools.
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