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Writing Traits Masterclass Series
From overwhelmed to confident: Master writing instruction one trait at a time.
Sign me up now!Are you struggling with writing instruction?
Does this sound like you?
- Your students' writing data shows a lack of growth.
- You struggle to pinpoint exactly what your students need to improve their writing.
- You find it hard to give feedback beyond structure, grammar and spelling.
- You're not sure how to use mentor texts to teach writing.
- You're confused by conflicting advice about teaching writing.
If so, the Writing Traits Masterclass is just for you!
"Writing has come to life for both me and my students!" -Chloe, teacher
What you'll gain from this course:
Shift from guessing to knowing: with strategy-based writing instruction
✔ Learn how to teach explicit writing strategies that help students craft engaging, well-structured texts.
✔ Provide targeted, strategy-focused feedback to your students.
✔ Use mentor texts to model and unpack the real strategies used by skilled writers.
✔ Breathe life into your writing lessons with purposeful, research-backed instruction.
✔ See measurable growth in both student engagement and student achievement in your writing classroom.
What you'll learn in this course:
The course is built on the research of experts like Professor Steve Graham, who has shown that explicitly teaching writing strategies leads to significant gains in student achievement.
Learn the qualities of good writing
Discover the full range of strategies real writers use: from generating strong ideas to refining sentence structure, and learn how to teach these explicitly.
Learn how to identify the strengths and weaknesses in student writing
Learn to diagnose student strengths and gaps in strategy use through annotated, authentic writing samples.
Learn how to use mentor texts to teach writing
Watch as I demonstrate how to use authentic picture storybooks to model the real writing strategies authors use, and how your students can apply them too.
‘Explicit and systematic strategy instruction in planning, drafting, evaluating and revising, with modelling, guided practice and feedback, has a significant positive effect on student writing quality in primary (Graham et al. 2012b; Kim et al. 2021) and secondary (Graham and Perin 2007a), including for students with learning disabilities (Gillespie and Graham 2014)’.
(AERO, 2022)
What's inside the course:
Across the six modules, you’ll explore more than 24 practical strategies - drawn from real author craft - that you can model, teach, and apply with your students.
The course takes you through a deep dive into each of the 6 writing traits. Each 1-hour module explores what the trait looks like in action, using picture books and authentic student work to highlight replicable strategies. You’ll receive specific, classroom-ready techniques for explicitly teaching these strategies to your students.
Here's a module breakdown for the course:
Module 1: Ideas
Learn how to teach students strategies for generating, focusing, and elaborating on strong ideas.
Module 2: Organisation
Explore how to teach strategies for organising ideas effectively: from crafting strong leads and transitions to experimenting with text structure.
Module 3: Voice
Engaging voice is what keeps a reader reading. Learn the what, why and how of voice in this module.
Module 4: Word Choice
UN-learn a popular misconception about effective word choice (Hint: it's about adjectives).
Module 5: Sentence Fluency
Learn about sentence-level structure, including teaching students about compound and complex sentences.
Module 6: Conventions
Learn an engaging method for teaching your students about punctuation and grammar. (It CAN be done!)
Take a look inside:
Course delivery
The Writing Traits Masterclass Series is designed to maximise what research says about effective professional development:
"Professional development that is sustained, offering multiple opportunities for teachers to engage in learning around a single set of concepts or practices has a greater chance of transforming teaching practices and student learning" (Darling-Hammond et al., 2017).
The course is divided into six, 1-hour modules made up of short video lessons — each designed to model, unpack, and support explicit strategy instruction in writing. Perfect for PLCs and school groups aiming to deepen their practice.
The self-paced nature of the course allows you to get your head around one trait at a time: Learn about the trait, trial it in your classroom, reflect on the trait's impact, before you repeat the cycle with the next trait.
It's a slow and steady drip-feed of content and support over time- just like the research on effective professional learning says it needs to be!
6-hours of professional development that you can access anywhere, any time, from any device.
You'll have access to the course for 12 months from the date of purchase, so you can revisit the videos and resources as many times as you like in that time.
The course is accessible via desktop or laptop and even through the Kajabi app on your tablet or phone. (Which means you can learn all about effective sentence structure and word choice while you're out walking your dog!)
Hello there!
My name is Riss Leung. I'm an Australian literacy consultant. I'm also a former primary school principal, Teaching and Learning coach, and Book Week judge.
When I first learned about the 6+1 traits of writing, it was like being told all the secrets of the writing world! I finally had a language to explain why one piece of writing was better than another (hint: it's so much more than correct structure).
This knowledge totally transformed how I taught writing!
I became confident in diagnosing my students' needs and planning explicit teaching to target these needs.
Realising how much difference this knowledge made to both my students' engagement and achievement in writing, I wanted to share this knowledge with every other teacher!
And that's why I created this Writing Traits Masterclass Series.
All the details:
What: 6-hours of self-paced pre-recorded video lessons. The course is divided into 6 modules. Each module is approximately 1-hour long. (Perfect for PLCs)
When can you start? Enrollment for individuals opens in January and July each year. Whole school access is available all year round (contact us for details).
Price: $250AUD + GST ($275 total) per person. If you'd like to enquire about large group discounts, please email [email protected].
Who: This course is suitable for pre-service, graduate and experienced teachers.
Other: 5% of all profits from Oz Lit Teacher courses go to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.
At Oz Lit Teacher we're serious about improving the literacy outcomes of every student across Australia. We believe postcode should not determine destiny, which is why we donate 5% of all our profits to Australia's Indigenous Literacy Foundation.
This foundation is focused on improving the literacy rates in remote Indigenous communities in Australia and we're very proud to support their work.
Want to pay via school invoice?
No problems! Simply fill out the form below and we'll send you an invoice and get you signed up quick smart!
Is writing a whole school priority for your school?
We love it when leadership teams purchase the Traits Masterclass Series for their whole staff because we know it leads to whole school improvements in student writing. The course is designed to be delivered via a drip-feed of learning and support- just like the research says it needs to be to be most effective.
We've had loads of schools use our course to support their staff with a flexible drip-feed of learning and support across a year. You can choose to watch the modules as a whole staff, in PLC groups or even individually.
We have generous whole-school discounts available. Email [email protected] to get a quote.
Click here to learn more about whole school access to the Traits MasterclassWhat schools are saying about this course:
Cowes Primary School, VIC
The self paced pre-recorded masterclass series was very supportive of our leadership team managing professional learning along with the other constraints a leadership and teaching position can bring. Narissa's presentation capabilities supported this as she was interactive despite the pre recording and we were able to revisit sections during our discussions if required.
St Benedict's Catholic School, QLD
The Traits Masterclass has been a resource within a 'Writing Project' within our school. It has been great professional learning to help teachers understand the traits. We love that it's online and self-paced. It's been a great resource to go with the 6+1 Traits book.
Westgrove Primary School, Vic
We love the 1 hour modules. We allocate time for PLC bands to meet to go through modules together. But we also love that staff can front load for upcoming modules or revisit as needed. We love that you can access the modules for the year and pace the learning to ensure staff aren’t overloaded.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can I pay for this course via a school invoice?
When does this course open?
What time are the workshops?
How long will I have access to the course?
Are there discounts available for large group / whole school purchases?
I've read all the traits books- is this content any different?
I'm a secondary teacher, would this course be suitable for me?
I'm not from Australia, can I pay in another currency?
Where can I access the T's & C's of the course?
Sign up now
Keen to learn how to give more effective feedback to your students?
Want to teach your students that there's more to good writing than structure and spelling alone?
Sign up to the Writing Traits Masterclass now