1.

Give a brief description of the Project and its outcomes

Diversity and Design: Promoting EAL students’ agency through creative writing

This Applied Curriculum Project was devised to address the support needed to students who
are learning English as an additional language (EAL). PST’s formed a double session lesson
for Point Cook Senior Secondary College Bridging (Year 11) and Intensive (year 10) students
with a focus on creative writing. The class, ‘creating a zine’ assisted students to develop their
writing skills through a series of different creative workshops. Using the PCSSC learning
cycle the lesson included:

• Brainstorming- ‘what’s a story’ ‘where do we see story’s?’

• Introducing the writing stimulus (a mirror) and writing prompts
• Showing and experiencing the stream of consciousness
• Strengthen- Two workshop stations
o Found Poem Station- Students write a series of sentences based off their
stream of consciousness, students then select one sentences and collaborate
with a group of peers to
o Illustration Station- Students elect to draw by hand or use
storyboardthat.com to create an image or storyboard based off their stream of
consciousness.

The original outcomes of this report were met;

➢ Students will have built upon their communication skills, including (but not limited to)
writing;
➢ Approach the creation and communication of narratives in an interactive and
collaborative manner;
➢ Students will have produced a physical creative zine collaboratively;
➢ The zine will be available for reading and reflection by faculty as well as the student
body.

2. Provide evidence of how project aims were met or not met and why with reference
to relevant educational theory / or literature or policy cited in the plan.

The aims of this project were to:

1. Strengthen EAL students’ access to English language/communication skills through

verbal and writing activities;
2. Encourage diverse approaches to written and verbal communication in the
construction of their final writing project;
3. Develop students’ sense of self by having diverse languages and experiences as the
starting point, and potentially central theme, of the writing projects;
4. Enable students to be agents of their own learning by giving them input into the
design of their finished product.

Our student evaluation scale sheets (completed by 36 students) provide some data for the
aims of our project. The majority of positive responses to questions suggest that we were
successful with our above aims. Although, it’s important to note, that although students did
not write their names on these sheets it is possible that they may have felt obliged in some
way to write a positive response.

Aim 1:
 ‘Today made me feel less confident in my
communication skills’
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Intensive Bridging

Strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree

Aim 2:

‘I enjoyed trying different processes in my

writing’
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Intesnsive Bridging

Strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree

Aim 3:
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 ‘I learnt more about myself today’
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
Intensive Bridging

strongly agree agree neutral disgree strongly disagree

Aim 4:

Having a say
100%
90%
80%
70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0%
I felt like I didn't have a say in the I felt like I didn't have a say in the I felt like I did have a say in the
end product process theme I wrote about

strongly agree agree neutral disagree strongly disagree

3. Comment on progress according to your Action Plan and advise of any changes to
this plan and the reasons for any changes.

One change to the project based off our ACP mentor’s suggestion was to change the
workshop from a lunch time activity into a class lesson for year 11 bridging and year 10
Intensive EAL students. In terms of preparation this shift meant that we spent more time
preparing and structuring the lesson rather than advertising to students. In terms of the
workshop we ended up working with a larger group of students which as PST’s added to our
classroom management experience as well as learning how different students engage in
different contexts.

One activity from our action plan was really beneficial to our project, observing the year 10
EAL drama workshop in June. Reflections from team member Ali included a list of 7
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successful parts of Rosa’s lesson, these were:

1. Creating a positive classroom culture

2. Time spent warming up (games etc.)
3. Diversity: enabling students to explore their own ideas
4. Flexible lesson planning- multiple back up and supplementary ideas
5. The input/energy of other teachers
6. The time devoted to reflection throughout the workshop process
7. An emphasis on process over product.

By describing what was successful and considering how this could be adapted to our
workshop planning and teaching we were able to form a workshop/lesson plan around not
only our specific aims on ‘diversity’ and ‘design’ design but also more generally to how to
create an inclusive and positive learning experience for students.

4. Evaluate the success or otherwise of the outcomes with reference to the evaluation
methodology described in the plan.

I. Student evaluation

Students written responses on exit slips highlighted some of the benefits and difficulties students
experienced through the creative writing workshop/lesson. The following tables organise some
recurring student comments into themes. Each table gives examples of student’s responses to
different exit slip questions ‘one thing I learnt today’ (Table 4.1), ‘which activity did you enjoy the
most and why?’ (Table 4.2) and, ‘which activity was the most challenging and why?’ (Table 4.3).

Intrapersonal and ‘I learn how to be creative and imaginative writers’.

creative learning ‘My imagination is crazy and I can become whatever I want’.

New experiences of ‘The learn to make a story about a mirror’.

working with a stimulus ‘Mirror is interesting’.
and looking at things in ‘Explain my emotion towards unexpected things’
new ways.

New processes ‘The process to make a nice little story’

‘How to create a short story effectively’
‘How I create my own story’
Table 4.1 Students’ responses to ‘One thing I learnt today’

‘Created our own story. It makes us get closer’.

Team work and
collaboration
‘Writing the story with others’.
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 ‘I enjoyed the part when students make up a story together’
Learning how to apply ‘Write a story because it help for my gramma, thinking and we
language skills in new need it make a story with different sentences’.
ways

The new processes ‘To cut and paste to make a new story from other different
used- editing the found people’s story’.
poem and writing a
stream of consciousness ‘The making of word vomit I found very interesting’.

‘Write whatever we are thinking. That’s the way we can

confide’.
The sharing of stories ‘Listening to (name’s) story’.

Student ownership from ‘Creating my own storyboard’

creating their own work

Table 4.2 Students’ responses to ‘Which activity did you enjoy the most and why?

‘I think the challenging is making the story because it’s hard to

Creative thinking-
come up more idea’.
writer’s block

‘The one (activity) that make us to make a story in a group

Team work and problem
because it needs to communicate with group member’
solving

‘Think about one story and make it combine with other’ ones.’

Drawing skills ‘Draw picture because it’s so hard for me’

‘Drawing is the hardest part because I don’t know how to draw’

‘What was (does a) mirror smell like?’
Creative questions and
ideas

Table 4.3 Student’s responses to ‘which activity was the most challenging and why?’

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 II. Mentor evaluation

Pre-service teacher feedback from Demmi (Bridging) and Lorraine (Intensive) provides evidence
of successful teaching moments and areas for improvement. Both teachers described the
positivity and enthusiasm, ‘lots of positive praise and positive energy’ in our teaching.

Some comments were useful in evaluating our first aims, to strengthen EAL student’s access to
English language/communication skills. Demmi documented specific elements of our teaching
that strengthened student’s language skills;

‘stimulus brought into class makes new vocab more accessible for EAL students’

‘negative sentences (feedback form) highlighted in bold writing’.

Suggestions on how we could improve access to language were also provided such as providing
greater explanation of the stream of consciousness activity. After we revised this tasks for the
next session, Lorraine commented that ‘the scaffolding that took place to create pieces of writing’
was one of the most successful elements of the lesson. She added to her feedback that when
teaching EAL students even more effort needs to be made to engage the whole class in speaking
English, particularly moments of class discussion.

Demmi’s provided positive feedback on how we connected to students to the tasks and the way
we elicited responses at the beginning of the session of their own experiences reading stories,
noting that in addition to this the use of teacher humour was another way of connecting with
students.

The celebration of her student’s success ‘amazing stories completed and shared’ sums up links
with our final aim of students having ownership and pride in their finished product.

III. PST evaluation

By having a debrief meeting after each workshop we were able to document and describe
highlights of successful teaching and learning moments, consider any challenges and create a
plan of action for ways of either enhancing the next session or considering alternatives for the
future (if we were to do something similar again).

The following ‘moments’ describe how our teaching practice and project met with our original
aims.

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Moment 1: ‘showing’ and ‘preparing’ students for the stream of consciousness

Aim: Strengthen EAL students’ access to English language/communication skills through verbal
and writing activities;

After the Bridging workshop I discussed with Wayne that the stream of consciousness
activity was challenging and confusing for some students. Many students simply answered
questions directly on to the prompt sheet and some students only wrote down one word
after 6 minutes of quick writing time. In order to assist more students in participating fully
we reconsidered our strategies.

Initial strategies:

- Timed activity, explain that it’s fast

- ‘Show’ Wayne does a stream of consciousness on the board

- ‘Show’ Ali discussed the concept of ‘word vomit’.

New strategies:

- Scaffolding- Give students 2 minutes to write short answers to the prompt workshop.
Then, on a blank piece of paper give them 5 minutes to do a stream of consciousness.

- Heighten the energy- Use a visual timer on the projector. Start with a quick warm up- word
association game to prepare the class for thinking quickly.

- ‘Don’t censor’- Ask students if they know people who speak without thinking (word vomit).
re-iterate to students when approaching tables to write whatever you are thinking.

Following this most students in the second session had greater detail in their stream of
consciousness pieces and the transition into the stations was much smoother. Wayne
commented after the second session that ‘the way we altered the structure resulted in a
clearer understanding’ of the task.

Moment 2: working collaboratively with the teacher

Aim: Encourage diverse approaches to written and verbal communication in the construction of
their final writing project;

One student didn’t feel comfortable collaboratively writing a story with their peers. To

remain true to this student’s diverse approach and yet still meet our outcome of creating
narratives in an interactive and collaborative manner, Wayne decided to collaborate with

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 the student offering his own sentences and guiding the student through the editing
process. This accommodation of preference seemed to have a profound impact on this
student, they wrote on their exit slip that ‘creating a story with my teacher’ was the most
enjoyable aspect of the session.

Moment 3: using the mirror stimulus as a vehicle to discuss student’s identity and self-
concept.

Aim: Develop students’ sense of self by having diverse languages and experiences as the starting
point, and potentially central theme, of the writing projects;

This is not a singular moment rather a collection of memories. The combination of

practical visual tasks, looking at the mirror and creating a storyboard or drawing were
excellent vehicles in initiating discussions between student and teacher about student’s
sense of self. Sometimes it wasn’t until the image had been created that students could
start to put into words their more complex ideas such as their past and future selves.

Moment 4: Oral and written stories.

Enable students to be agents of their own learning by giving them input into the design of their
finished product.

During the sharing part of one session a students decided to extend the reading of their
groups found poem by combining oral story telling methods (extending on what had been
written). By encouraging this story teller to share their unique process of creating a story,
Wayne was able to promote the group’s sense of pride in their finished work.

Unsuccessful outcomes

One great flaw in our planning and teaching of the EAL Zine workshops was that we limited our
time in such a way that we were unable to give students time to edit their work. This meant that
the final Zine had grammatical and spelling errors that could have been discussed for learning. In
this way our project missed an opportunity to build on student’s communication skills.

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