Lachlann Carter

Lachlann Carter is an author, educator, and maker of things. His book, BIG TROUBLE with Angry Chairs, is the first in a series of funny and action-packed graphic junior fiction books, followed by his second book in the series, BIG TROUBLE with An Old Fart.

A former primary school teacher, Lachlann is the co-founder and was for 10 years CEO of 100 Story Building, a not-for-profit organisation based in Melbourne dedicated to supporting the development of creativity and literacy in children and young people. Since opening its doors in 2013, 100 Story Building has worked with over 50,000 children and young people.
Lachlann now lives and works in Gimuy/Cairns, where he splits his time between working with children, schools and communities on creative learning projects, and writing.

He is also in the process of establishing a creative learning initiative for children and young people in Far North Queensland.

Lachlann is an experienced and engaging presenter and facilitator having delivered over 1,000 creative writing workshops for children and hundreds of professional learning programs for teachers in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, London, Amsterdam, and the USA.

An advocate for fairness and opportunity in learning and life and using stories and creativity as a vehicle for change, he is proud to sit on the boards of the Primary English Teachers Association of Australia (PETAA) and the Education Equity Alliance, and on the Community Leadership Council of the Investment Dialogue for Australia’s Children.

Lachlann Carter Workshops

Professional learning in creative writing for primary and secondary schools. These range from one-off after school workshops, and whole-day seminars, through to term-long programs, and can include multiple school partners. Teachers explore how creative thinking, and creative practice can be embedded in literacy teaching.

Duration: 1.5 hours | In-person or Online

Into the Unknown

Helping teachers become adventurers in the world of creativity alongside their students

The most powerful thing a teacher can do to demystify and open up the creative process and help engage reluctant students into the world of making stories, is to do it live together with the students. Turn your own reservations and inhibitions, and uncertainty around your ideas and ability to execute them, into your creative teaching superpower.

In this session, author and creative learning educator Lachlann will share strategies for teachers to feel confident to model creative risk taking, fostering creative thinking skills in students.

Participants will:

• learn new strategies in developing creative writing units
• learn activities that are built around key principles of creative learning
• explore several case studies of school partnership programs that have resulted in greater teacher confidence in supporting student creativity

Reframing the Relationship

Drawing on the collaborative relationship between author and editor to inform how student and teacher can work together on narrative

Editors are incredible. They do far more than simply correcting bad spelling and grammar. They are crucial creative collaborators for their authors, providing guidance at all stages of the creative process. They contribute questions, ideas, provocations. They assist with structural challenges. They solve problems of logic. They help authors develop deeper understandings of their worlds and characters.

Join author and creative literacy educator Lachlann as he unpacks the many aspects of the relationship between author and editor and makes links to how teachers can use it as a framework for how they support their students develop skills and understandings in writing.

Participants will:

• Follow the journey through the various stages of creation of a professionally published children’s book
• Unpack the various stages of editing, and make links to how these relate to curriculum and teaching
• Explore narrative teaching strategies that draw on the professional practice of authors and editors

Writers Journal

A tool for understanding, assessing and responding to creative thinking

Just as it’s hard to know a student’s thinking in numeracy when they give you an answer without showing you their working out, it is equally as hard to know what their understanding is of a narrative concept just by reading only their finished work. They may have a very clear idea of what it is they’re trying to achieve – for instance, they may grasp the concept of show don’t tell, but for whatever reason or reasons, have not quite nailed the execution of it in a particular passage. Because creative work takes time and trying it out and putting things on the page to work through and experiment.

A Writer’s Journal is a place where the students track the decisions they make throughout the process, answering questions and prompts, making notes of things they’re finding challenging, or are proud of, or explaining the intended outcome/audience reaction/dramatic effect of certain parts of their writing. A journal, alongside all the planning work they create, and their actual story, is a great anchor tool for discussion and conferencing, and helps you see far more clearly what is going on in their head.

In this session, children’s author and creative literacy educator Lachlann will walk participants through the steps of incorporating a Writer’s Journal into a narrative unit.

Participants will:

• Explore fundamentals around creative decision-making, and how these relate to the narrative curriculum
• Learn how a Writer’s Journal provides space for students to justify and expand on their creative decision-making
• Explore ways teachers can use the journal to develop deeper understandings of students’ grapes of narrative concepts, to inform further teaching and assessment