Marrung Ngarralyn: virtual poetry workshop

Marrung Ngarralyn was a virtual poetry workshop, coordinated by Dr Lorraine Beveridge, that involved 8 Hunter Valley schools and approximately 500 Stage 3 (Years 5-6) students and their teachers. The students at these schools had previously studied a collaboratively developed English unit titled Daore, karrat and canbe (earth, rain and fire), featuring texts by Aboriginal authors such as Kirli Saunders (Bindi), Rachel Bin Salleh and Samantha Fry (Alfred’s war) and Bruce Pascoe (Mrs Whitlam and Young dark emu). This paper, first published in Scan in 2022, provides a report of this exciting event, and also suggests a variety of ideas for writing and sharing poetry that teachers can use in classrooms, across classrooms or across schools.

Many thanks to Scan for allowing the author to publish the paper on the We Love English site. The full edition of Scan in which this paper was published can be found at https://education.nsw.gov.au/teaching-and-learning/professional-learning/scan/past-issues/vol-41-2022/issue-4-2022 .