Tassie teachers set off on a literary adventure

What happens when our creative facilitator Brendan Barnett and 30 teachers end up in the same room - well, online room to be precise? 

A discussion on how to get the students writing stories full of imaginative leaps and fantastic characters, of course. 

Thank you Australian Literacy Educators’ Association (ALEA), Tasmania branch, for inviting 100 Story Building to deliver a two-part professional learning program to literacy educators in Tasmania exploring links between reading and writing.

We used the opportunity to bring an exciting experiment in narrative writing into Tasmanian classrooms. In the first part, delivered last week, we gave the teachers the tools to get each student in their class writing a piece of original fiction using our online interactive Choose Your Own Adventure video workshop. 

The teachers will now use these tools to get their Year 4-6 students to plot out a story with multiple, branching narratives. Next, they’ll engage the class in a collaborative exercise to help each student identify their best storyline, which will be extended into a full written work. 

Our professional learning workshops use engaging and lively formats to promote creative teaching practices that also foster agency, critical and creative thinking skills and collaborative skills in students. 

In keeping with our ethos of promoting playfulness in interactions, we asked the teachers to condense their feedback of the session into six exact words - no more, no less. 

Here’s what they had to say: 

Ashley: Make boring ideas so much better

Liz: Looking forward to choosing our way

Beck: I choose my adventure, it's teaching.

Sofia: Creative stories about to be written!

Peta: Can't wait to use it, excited!

Adrienne: Excited to begin adventure next week!

At the second and final session, to be held later in September, the teachers will reconvene to share their experiences and learnings, and to further unpack the approaches we use to promote creative literacy. 

To inquire about our professional learning programs for teachers and educators, write to info@100storybuilding.org.au. 

View our online interactive creative literacy workshops for Year 3-9.