Murray Gadd - WHAT MAKES A GREAT WRITING LESSON/PROGRAMME?

As part of my research for my inquiry, I was lucky enough to go on a course with Murray Gadd. I was blown away! The course gave me so many take aways and inspired me in so many ways. 

Unfortunately I cannot post all of the notes here but some of my top take aways were: 

- Ways to motivate and engage ALL writers - Murray uses a lot of picture books to engage his writers. His videos are on YouTube for future reference. 


- Vocabulary is a key focus area for writers. How can I give learners more opportunities to explore different verbs and adjectives? Mainly verbs. 

- Effective teachers ensure that ALL writers know that they have something to say and something to write. 

- All writing tasks need to be goal oriented. This means asking 'What am I going to have to be good at as a writer to do this task well?' 'What does achievement/success look like?' 

- Murray talks about giving learners a success criteria that involves using looking words (words I can see on my page/word card - these might be gifted by the teacher), knowing words (words I know, often sight words) and sound out (words I don't know and will need to sound out). Following on from this, I created the following success criteria for my learners: 
- Differentiation is so important in writing! Writing workshops are key - Murray gave some great examples on how to structure these workshops. 

- Make sure you create a positive and safe environment where learners are willing to take risks in writing.

I was so incredibly inspired by this Saturday PD session that I went home and planned some writing connected to our concept of Diversity. Here is what I created :) 











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