Inside the Band 6 Essay - English Teacher Workshop for an Imaginary Life

Jane from Writing with Finesse and Jonny from Jeddle are joining forces to bring together their expertise, their love of English and their commitment to explicit teaching. They invite you inside a Band 6 response to David Malouf’s An Imaginary Life, explore the thinking behind the writing, and exactly how to teach it.

What's in the session

In this 2 hour online session, Jane and Jonny will unpack a text-specific essay, examining how to:

• Construct an introduction that establishes a clear conceptual argument

• Shape a purposeful sequence of topic sentences that develops that argument across the essay

• Build sequences of IQTVEs that deepen and sustain each paragraph’s line of argument

• Engage closely with the focus area’s concepts through analysis of micro and macro textual features

• Embed context purposefully and balance attention to authorial purpose and audience positioning

Throughout the session, Jane and Jonny will connect the exemplar to classroom practice, exploring how teachers can model analytical decisions, make evaluative thinking visible and explicitly teach the development of conceptual arguments.

By working backwards from an accomplished essay, we can identify the knowledge, skills and practice students need to write with increasing independence, precision and conviction.

The finished essay becomes a valuable starting point for teaching because it is an explicit way to:

• make analytical decisions visible

• model best practice

• prepare students for the challenge of composing a sustained, insightful and perceptive literary argument in 45 minutes.

Meet the presenters

Jane Stocks is an experienced English teacher, HSC marker, education consultant and the founder of Writing With Finesse. Through Jane's IQTVE method, Jane has transformed the writing culture at several selective schools and increased the number of Band 6 results by over 30%.

Jonny Boyle is the founder of Jeddle, an online English resource provider that has helped over 200 schools and 50,000 students model the success of the state's top achievers in English through text-specific analysis, exemplar responses and instant draft feedback.

Text-specific workshop series for Texts and Human Experiences

Continue the conversation across four online workshops exploring Band 6 exemplars for:

• Henry Lawson’s short stories - 10 Nov, 5-7pm

• Jessica Au’s Cold Enough for Snow - 12 Nov, 5:30-7:30pm

• Richard Flanagan’s Question 7 - 17 Nov, 5-7pm

• David Malouf’s An Imaginary Life - 19 Nov, 5:30-7:30pm

Early bird booking price of $99 per workshop when you book before Friday 6 November.

We are excited for you to join us as we make the thinking behind writing visible.