The Craft of Writing in Standard English Course Overview
Facilitator: Emily Bosco (Bachelor of Arts, GradDipEd [Secondary], Master of English Studies)
Duration: 3 hours
NESA Career Stage Level: Proficient Teacher (NSW)
Australian Professional Standards: 2 and 3
Fee: $400 (GST inclusive)
Next In-person Course: TBC
Venue: TBC
Time: 10:00am-2:00pm
Next Live Online Course: Wednesday 28th October, 2026 (registrations close Tuesday 27th October, 2026)
Time: 10:00am-2:00pm
Platform: Zoom
Session 1: Understanding the New Craft of Writing Focus Area
This session unpacks the requirements of The Craft of Writing in the new English Standard 11–12 Syllabus. Teachers will examine the focus area content, outcomes, and expectations for imaginative, discursive, persuasive, and reflective writing, with particular attention to audience, purpose, context, genre, perspective, and compositional choice. We will explore what it means to teach writing as a deliberate, recursive craft and identify the key shifts that should shape programming, teaching, and learning.
Session 2: Reading Like a Writer: Using Mentor Texts to Teach Craft
How do we move students from identifying techniques to making purposeful choices in their own writing? This session explores a practical approach to teaching through mentor texts across imaginative, discursive, persuasive, and reflective styles. Teachers will consider how close reading of specific aspects of craft can lead into experimentation and composition, and how carefully selected authorial choices can become transferable craft principles. The focus is on helping students build a repertoire of possibilities rather than imitate model texts or rely on writing formulas.
Session 3: Developing Independent Writers: Composing, Refining, Reflecting and Assessing
The final session focuses on helping students transfer their developing knowledge of craft to new writing situations. Teachers will explore practical strategies for generating ideas, responding flexibly to stimuli, manipulating genre, changing perspective and context, drafting, editing, refining, and reflecting on compositional choices. We will also unpack the school-based assessment requirements and consider approaches to preparing students for unfamiliar HSC-style writing tasks. Teachers will examine how purposeful activities, model responses, exam-style questions, and flexible assessment design can develop genuine control, adaptability, and independence as writers.
We’d love to hear from you
Whether you have a question about our professional learning, student resources or incursions, or upcoming events, our team is always happy to help.