The Writer’s Craft – EWC4U (Tutoring)

Non-Fiction: Journalism 

Students will activate their awareness for current issues in the media and act upon them as junior journalists. In this unit students will learn to write in a formal register and investigate how subtleties in tone can change the overall complexion of a written piece. They will be introduced to the idea of writing with an audience in mind, and to reflect upon how they project themselves to the reading public. The unit will require the student to produce three pieces of writing for evaluation: A praise or protest letter, a restaurant review, and a feature article about a current local issue of the student’s choosing. Each written piece will be preceded with a draft for teacher feedback followed by a final composition for evaluation and an end of unit reflection on the importance of writing with an audience in mind

Grammar & Poetry 

Students will participate in a workshop designed to enhance student ability with syntactical and grammatical issues related to improving the level of sophistication in writing. Students will examine tone and register in closer detail to meet audience expectation and also work towards improving coherence and cohesion in written pieces to solidify transition continuity. Defining and communicating creativity will be this unit’s greater challenge. Students will be tasked with evoking a variety of moods and atmospheres in their compositions to elicit response from readers. This will constitute the peer edit portion of the unit prior to submission of a poetry compilation for evaluation. The unit ends with a reflection on the knowledge attained and the skills practiced. 

Fiction: Children’s Story 

In Unit 3, students will consider a different audience than in the earlier units: children. Students will employ their understanding of writing for a target audience and extend themselves by having to focus on simplicity rather than the complexity of more mature compositions. As part of the research for this unit, students will present some of their favourite children’s stories and explain why these stories are “successful” for them based on their own criteria. The unit ends with a draft and consultation with the teacher before producing their own children’s story book complete with illustrations. As per course expectation, students will reflect on the task and the relationship between illustrations and text.   

Culminating Assignment 

This section of the course puts the onus of creative composition on the students themselves. Students will tap into their own creative muses and set the trajectory for their own works. The first of these will be the composition of short form creative literature: greeting cards, song, advertising jingles, etc. and be followed by a longer form narrative (i.e. story, vignette series, play, etc.) to be conveyed on an e-format of their choosing. The full collection of key learnings, understandings, and skills development will be compiled into a single thematic portfolio for final evaluation.

Final Exam 

2 hours