Across Years 7, 8 and 9, our major focus has been on improving writing. All year levels have been learning that there are seven key areas in writing: ideas, organisation, structure and language, sentence structure, vocabulary, spelling, and punctuation. These areas are assessed in any form of writing.

We are working on individual pathways where each student focuses on specific areas identified from their last assessment and from weekly writing tasks.

Additionally, students have begun their blackout poetry in preparation for National Poetry Day on 22 August. Using a given text, they black out selected words so the remaining words form a poem. This can be challenging, but with perseverance students are creating their own imagery from the original text.

Year 8

Our reading of I Am Malala is focused on characterisation. Students are learning to structure a paragraph using the SEED format, creating statements, finding associated evidence, and explaining how the author presents this through their choice of words.

Year 9

Through our text Brown Girl Dreaming we have explored literary devices such as anaphora and made connections between the text and its themes. Students are also learning to structure paragraphs using the SEED format, creating statements, finding associated evidence, and explaining how the poet presents this through their choice of words.