The Assumption School Bathurst

Power in the language of poetry

The Bathurst Diocese has been conducting an AGQTP project intended to deepen primary school teachers’ understanding of grammar and the ways that it may be taught explicitly and creatively. State testing in literacy had revealed that some students in the Bathurst Diocese were experiencing difficulties with aspects of grammar. Four schools - Assumption School Bathurst, St Joseph’s Blayney, St Joseph’s Portland and St Patrick’s Lithgow - were invited to send two teachers to workshops led by Australian Catholic University academics, Maya Cranitch and Lorraine McDonald.

Michelle O’Shannessy
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Clarifying teachers’ knowledge

An introductory session focused on the nature of grammar and how to bring it to the fore in student learning activities. According to workshop participant, Michelle O’Shannessy from Assumption School, this was an important starting point, as the teachers' own knowledge of grammar was quite varied. Older teachers had gone through their own schooling during times when there was a strong emphasis on traditional grammar, whereas younger teachers did not have that kind of background.

Writing teams produce exemplar units

Participants then divided into stage teams to write exemplar units of work for grammar that utilised hands-on, inventive learning activities. A group decision was made to use poetry as the basis for teaching students about grammar. This worked exceptionally well. Just as grammar is a toolbox for language, the nature of poetry demonstrated how language may be used concisely and imaginatively to create different kinds of meaning. The individual draft units were then critiqued by all participants, providing opportunities for additional cross-fertilisation of ideas and ensuring that issues of scope and sequence between stages were addressed before the units were sent to the pilot schools for implementation.

Cathy Matthews
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Schools start working with the units

At Assumption School, the units were well received by students. Cathy Matthews, one of the workshop participants, trialled a unit with her class. Its practical activities gave her students the confidence to experiment with descriptive language by moving the position of words in phrases to change meaning. Another participant, Alison Hanley (formerly from St Joseph’s Blayney now teaching at Assumption School), said that the combination of learning about grammar through practical poetry activities resulted in her students feeling validated as ‘real’ poets:

Alison Hanley

I think that the whole crux of it was that the students discovered the power in language ‑ something that they hadn’t actually seen before. It became obvious that not only what they read has power, but what they write can have power too. Students don’t often feel like that about their own writing.

Plans are in place to expand the grammar project as Bathurst Diocese seeks to meet the literacy needs of its K-6 students through teachers’ professional learning about grammar.

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