Dialogue can be a source of pain for teachers – the Main Pain being students’ tendency to write pages of boring dialogue based on real life conversations; the ‘how are yous’ and ‘hellos’ that don’t reveal character, move the plot along, or make the writing more dynamic. Professional writers skip straight to good bits to…
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Step by Step Blog
Persuasive Writing Course – It’s a wrap!
Tightening Tension in Persuasive Writing
In Narrative Writing, you create tension by gradually building up the challenges faced by the characters using the pebble (small problem), rock (medium problem), boulder (main tension scene) approach. In Persuasive Writing, on the other hand, the key is to start strong and then build to a crescendo by saving your strongest and most emotionally…
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NAPLAN Online – Top ten preparation tips
The Magic of Technology – Inspiring great writing
My two-year-old son holds the monopoly on wonder in our household; every new thing he experiences fills him with an excitement that can’t be contained. Little things that I take for granted make his whole face light up with glee and his little feet dance a euphoric jig. Unfortunately, by the time children reach school…
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Track Your Success – An introduction
NAPLAN Preparation – Top Tips and Activities
Having mastered the Seven Steps techniques, you should be well prepared for this year’s NAPLAN writing task! Our top tip in the final few weeks is to focus on the ‘authorial’ side of writing, (worth 36−7 marks) NOT the ‘secretarial’ side (worth 11 marks). So, forget about spelling and punctuation for just now. If you…
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Orient, Engage and Persuade with a Sizzling Start
As with any type of text, you only have a few sentences to grab the reader’s attention and make an impression. The introduction to a persuasive text is the hook that engages the reader and makes them want to read more. This is why a Sizzling Start can make such a difference to students’ writing….
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