Professional Dialogue and Practice: The Literacy Toolkit

Literacy skills extend beyond the four walls of the English classroom and are, in fact, fundamental to the curriculum, with many disciplines having very specific literacy demands. Beyond the school gates, literacy instruction better prepares our students to access a wide variety of opportunities, thereby allowing them to thrive and achieve success both personally and professionally. Moreover, literacy skills contribute significantly to community involvement and civic engagement.

Consequently, improving literacy outcomes has been central to my purpose throughout my career as both an English teacher and instructional leader and, over the last fifteen years, I have sought out numerous professional development opportunities related to literacy development in secondary schools.

Upon joining the Braemar College staff in 2022, I was, therefore, excited to learn about the Professional Learning Team (PLT) structure and participate in a literacy focused PLT. Our regular meetings proved to be both practically rewarding and inspiring as they offered the chance to explore a range of strategies from Judith Hochman and Natalie Wexler’s guide, The Writing Revolution, with the aim of enabling our students to become proficient writers, readers and critical thinkers. In addition to the exploration of literacy teaching strategies, we were able to engage in rich professional discussion about the implementation of these strategies in a variety of classroom settings, discuss potential challenges, share ideas and celebrate improved literacy outcomes.

A particularly informative part of the PLT process was the opportunity to engage in peer observations focused on the teaching of a literacy skill. In Term 2, I was invited to observe a senior class with a learning intention to improve the specificity and sophistication of persuasive arguments. To achieve this, students were guided through the process of using a variety of conjunctions to convert simple sentences expressing basic ideas into either compound or complex sentences. Having revised and practised this skill, students were able to apply the strategy to their own writing, thereby improving their ability to expand on their initial ideas and articulate more complex arguments. Witnessing student engagement in the writing activity and the success of this strategy inspired me to trial the mini lesson with my own class. Once again, explicit teaching of this skill provided students with the tools to articulate more complex ideas, thereby enhancing the quality of student writing.

Throughout the PLT experience, I have been reminded of just how important it is to keep our literacy toolkit on hand. Whilst students may have learnt core literacy skills in early years, regular review, practice and development is needed to achieve a degree of automaticity and build mastery in the craft of writing. In addition, the process has reinforced my belief in just how much we can learn from engaging in professional conversations and sharing our expertise with colleagues from a wide variety of disciplines. Often, we look to external providers to provide us with opportunities for professional development and, whilst this is highly valuable, there is much to be gained from finding the time to discuss our craft with a view to maximising student learning outcomes.

Ms Lisa-Jayne Lacey

VCE English and English Language Teacher.

Throughout the PLT experience, I have been reminded of just how important it is to keep our literacy toolkit on hand.