Gemma Johnstone

As a young child and now educator I have always had a passion for literacy. I love the English Language, how words sound and feel and how they come together to make mearning in all different sorts of ways. As a teacher it is always my aim to develop and nuture this passion of literacy and literature within my students, which I feel I have always been successful with and I feel the time has come to now share this passion and help develop literacy in a wider school context.

It is also important here to mention that the way we write and read is changing in today's society, which is jammed pack with technological innovation and progress. Students are connecting with their world in ways that some of us have not even imagined, through blogging, messaging and chat rooms, where they have a wider 'real life' audience for their creativity and expression.

This brings new questions to the teaching of literacy and emphasises the importance of students being taught explicit skills to be able to function and be successful in this new world of communication.

The aim of my Literacy Project is to ensure that students in the Middle School have opportunity to learn the mechanics of language and how it can be interpretted and manipulated to be able to progress to their senior years of schooling and beyond with the necessary skills, knowledge and understanding behind them.