Jim's School

Regular writing practice in science, responding to rich syllabus based tasks will improve student learning outcomes. Karl Maton from the University of Sydney claims that the academic/technical language of subject disciplines is characterised by semantic density. Maton acknowledges that subject-specialist teachers are experts in breaking down the technical language of their subjects to a less semantically dense, less powerful commonsense language for students. However, he observes that students require opportunities to rebuild the semantically dense texts that are characteristic of the subject disciplines if they are to master subject-specific literacy. In this workshop participants will: 

• Analyse and differentiate student writing of explanations and persuasive texts using both a literacy and conceptual taxonomies
• Discuss the characteristics of rich writing tasks designed to elicit sustained writing from science students
• Analyse the Australian Science Curriculum for opportunities to ask rich questions of students.
• Create and share rich writing tasks that share a common assessment rubric
• Collaboratively use Google.docs to engage in a pedagogy and strategies to improve student writing and learning outcomes in science