NCTCA 2021

One of the most important skills that every student needs is the ability to communicate in writing, whether that means building an elegant paragraph, a well-argued essay, or a successful business plan. Yet teaching writing skills is an ongoing challenge for junior- and senior-high teachers as well as an ongoing frustration for many (if not the majority of) students. And yet it doesn't have to be. Showcasing a number of strategies developed over two decades of teaching first-year university students and business leaders how to write effectively and with confidence, I use this workshop to show you how to take the traditional introduction-body-conclusion model and re-energize it through a much more accessible (and visual) emphasis on the geometry of writing, the philosophy of information sharing, and the craft that sets really effective writing from the merely average. More importantly, I show you how these strategies are easily scalable, giving students the confidence to move from a single paragraph to a 2-page assignment to a 10-page essay with as little stress and as much success as possible. Finally I show you how this model simplifies assessment and allows for constructive input to be generated more readily and with more impact.