Start here: successful student-led writing groups

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While teacher-librarians often focus their literacy work on literature promotion and reader engagement, they are also well placed to help build strong participatory writing cultures. The task of engaging writers has become less visible in recent times, partly due to a strong literacy policy focus on reading instruction (for example: NSW Standards Authority, 2018; Parmenter, 2017) and also because writing may be seen as the responsibility of English curriculum teachers rather than teacher-librarians.

This blog series aims to provide practical guidelines for teacher-librarians to facilitate successful student-led recreational writing groups. Such groups should be established according to elements of participatory culture (Jenkins, 2009; Jenkins, 2010), significantly differentiating the experience from that of typical classroom writing which may be constrained by crowded curriculums, standardised tests (and resultant non-existent intrinsic motivation to produce high quality and original writing).

Elements of successful student-led writing groups include:

1. Student CONTROL

2. HIGH-INTEREST topics

3. DIALOGUE about writing

4. AUTHENTIC AUDIENCES for writing

Providing these conditions to young writers will help establish a learning environment that operates as an ‘affinity space’ (Jenkins, 2009): a space that is both physical and digital, communal and generative, where students can choose their own levels of participation and benefit from peer mentoring the mentoring of others while also providing their own expertise to their peers (Jenkins, 2009).

Further reading:

Jenkins, H. (2009). Confronting the challenges of participatory culture: Media education for the 21st century. The MIT Press. https://www.macfound.org/media/article_pdfs/JENKINS_WHITE_PAPER.PDF

Jenkins, H. (2010). TEDxNYED – Henry Jenkins. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFCLKa0XRlw

Parmenter, J. (2017). The real reasons so many young people can't write today: by an English teacher. The Washington Post. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/answer-sheet/wp/2017/11/08/the-real-reasons-so-many-young-people-cant-write-well-today-by-an-english-teacher/

NSW Studies Authority. (2018). Teaching Writing: Report of the Thematic Review of Writing. https://www.educationstandards.nsw.edu.au/wps/wcm/connect/f58f0df9-31f8-43b3-862a-c8c4329c889e/thematic-review-teaching-writing.pdf?MOD=AJPERES&CVID=