Some secrets to our writing workshop
The holiday program uses elements from the Seven Steps to Writing Program, as well as unique and specific language/literacy approaches developed by the clinicians at Sydney Therapy & Co. Three of the four stages of writing (planning, writing, editing) will be targeted in detail to enhance each child’s writing skills from start to finish.
What are the Seven steps to writing?
The seven steps provide the building blocks to great writing. They isolate writing skills into individual steps to ensure students don’t get ‘bogged down’ with writing the whole piece. They gain confidence in each building block, and then they pull it all together to become creative and engaging writers.
(Taken from Seven Steps website: https://www.sevenstepswriting.com/what-are-the-seven-steps/)
‘Planning for success’
Students learn that the planning part of a story or persuasive text is arguably the most fun stage of writing, and the most important! Our program will teach students how to brainstorm, together and independently, using visualisation techniques such as mind mapping and visual scaffolds. They then take these scaffolds home to use for planning out school assessments.
‘Sizzling starts’
The ‘sizzling start’ teaches students how to captivate a reader from the first sentence by starting with a bang! Students learn how to use emotional words, onomatopoeia, dialogue, visualisation and rhetorical questions to ensure that their story or persuasive text will stand out amongst the rest.
‘Tightening the tension’
Students learn where the climax of a narrative story sits, and how to give more depth and length to the scene using the five senses. The persuasive text structure is also taught here, and when and how to make stronger arguments even more convincing.
‘Exciting Endings’
Students learn that there is no quick fix to concluding a narrative story, and that the ending needs to be known before the writing starts! They learn how to tie up a story, and an argument, in an emotive, effective and convincing manner.
Editing
The therapists at Sydney Therapy and Co have plenty of experience when it comes to grammar! In addition to learning
- how to structure an extended piece of writing and
- how to engage readers,
students undertaking the program will learn
- the basics around punctuation, including use of commas, quotation marks, apostrophes, capitals, full stops,
- grammar, including use of pronouns and tense consistency,
- some basic spelling rules
- when and how to use dialogue and
- basic meta linguistic skills such as using better adverbs and adjectives.
