School of Education
Jen Thompson
Lecturer
BSocSci NE , GDipEd GradDipPsych WAustIT MA (Professional Communication) Deakin
Jen Thompson
Bio
Jen has taught in Northwestern Ontario, Western Australia and New South Wales and is a registered Reading Recovery teacher. She began lecturing in Literacy at the School of Education, Charles Sturt University in 2007. Jen has worked as a research assistant, tutor, marker and Educational Designer at CSU since 1996, while continuing to write professionally and teach in local schools.
For her Master of Arts (Professional Communication) major research project Jen wrote a Young Adult novel in a print and graphic digital format, and conducted multimodal writing workshops for children 11-15yrs at the Museum of the Riverina. The Museum research component was recorded on CDRom as the ‘Cyberwriters Project’. Her paper was presented at the Toronto Reading Conference in April 2008 and will appear as a chapter in a textbook on New Literacies being edited by OISIE staff at present.
Jen began writing professionally in 1992 as a scriptwriter for CBCRadio and TVOntario. Thirty five of her children’s television scripts have been produced and many have aired in Canada, Ireland, Namibia, China and Australia. Her program 'The Wall' was nominated for a Gemini Award for Excellence in Children's Television Broadcasting in 1994.
Since returning to Australia, Jen has written for ABC Television (Playschool) and ABCRadio. She has had a number of short stories and poems published in anthologies in Australia and Canada. She has edited three books: Cybertales (an anthology of fantasy writing by young authors), Lines from Barellan (oral histories and poems from the Barellan museum writing workshops) and FourWEleven (an anthology of prose and poetry). In 2004, she wrote The Shakespeare Ladies: A history of the Wagga Wagga Shakespeare Club to mark the centenary of the oldest Shakespearean reading club in the world.
Research
- Historical Fiction
- Interactive Video Teaching
- Multiliteracies – Learning by Design.
- Community Writing Projects
- Reading and writing processes and pedagogy
- Literature
Teaching
- Primary English Curriculum
- Literature
Professional Engagement
- Member Australian Society of Authors
- Member Primary English Teachers Association
- Member International Reading Association
- Member Wagga Wagga Writers Writers
- Member Oral History Association of Australia
- Archival Secretary, Wagga Wagga Shakespeare Club