The Write Coach

18/09/2026

Inviting students to discuss, debate and think laterally is one of the best things in the world!
It's great to see them move quickly beyond the obvious answer, digging for nuance and complexity and celebrating when a classmate comes up with a new way of thinking about a topic.
https://www.thewritecoach.nz/topic-critical-thinking-cards

15/09/2026

Are you using political language in your classrooms?

14/09/2026

So...what does analyse actually mean?

13/09/2026

Agree, disagree, or ‘it depends’?

12/09/2026

More quotations won’t necessarily get you Excellence.

Stuck getting Merit in NCEA English? Learn how shifting your focus from the text to the question can help you develop the deeper thinking needed for Excellence.

12/09/2026

More quotations won’t necessarily get you Excellence.
Read more here:

Stuck getting Merit in NCEA English? Learn how shifting your focus from the text to the question can help you develop the deeper thinking needed for Excellence.

11/09/2026

You know the book. You’ve learned the quotes. You understand the characters, themes and techniques.
So why do you keep getting Merit?
Often, the problem isn’t how well you know the text. It’s what you do with that knowledge when you see the essay question.
Merit essays can be very good essays about the text.
Excellence requires you to make the question the centre of your thinking — and use the text to build an answer to it.
It’s a small shift that can completely change the way you approach an essay.
And it’s one I spend a lot of time working on with students who are ready to make that jump.
Read more here:
https://www.thewritecoach.nz/how-to-get-excellence-ncea-english

10/09/2026

Knowing a text really well can actually get in the way of writing an excellent essay. It can mean that the essay is build around what the writer knows about the text, instead of being a considered response to the question/topic.
I've written more about this here:

Stuck getting Merit in NCEA English? Learn how shifting your focus from the text to the question can help you develop the deeper thinking needed for Excellence.

10/09/2026

Knowing a text really well can actually get in the way of writing an excellent essay. It can lead to students building an essay from everything they know about the text, instead of responding to the question. An 'excellence' answer uses the text as evidence to support the stance of the writer, where the stance is that response.
I've written about this exact problem here:

Stuck getting Merit in NCEA English? Learn how shifting your focus from the text to the question can help you develop the deeper thinking needed for Excellence.

09/09/2026

This is what my Topic Cards are designed to make you do!