Implementing Good Practice Pedagogy to Support Law Students’ Writing Skills - Law Education Review Volume 30 Issue 1

Sep 5, 2026

Examines how a law writing program was implemented in line with a Good Practice Guide commissioned for Threshold Learning Outcome 5, using mixed methods to capture the experiences of both students and law academics. The article focuses on embedding writing support within discipline content, grounding it in literacy learning principles, and enabling collaboration with academic language and learning experts. Findings show learning opportunities through writing, improved student performance for some cohorts, and practical guidance for integrating writing development effectively.

LanguageEnglish

CategoryResearch & Report

FormatPDF

Pages45

Reading Time1 h 53 min

AccessFree to download

Introduction

Implementing good practice pedagogy and writing support

Australian law schools and student writing

Responsibilities and frameworks guiding writing development

Bond University Legal Education Review | Volume 30 | Issue 1 | | --- | --- | | 2020
Implementing Good Practice Pedagogy to Support Law Students’ Writing Skills
Sandra Noakes
Western Sydney University | | Follow this and additional works at: [https://ler.scholasticahq.com/](https://ler.scholasticahq.com/) This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 4.0 Licence. IMPLEMENTING GOOD PRACTICE PEDAGOGY TO SUPPORT LAW STUDENTS’WRITING SKILLS SANDRANOAKES * I INTRODUCTION The issue of the standard of writing of school and university students in Australia is again in the media. 1 Whilst debates about the standard of students’ academic literacy occur in a somewhat cyclical pattern,2 the current attention to this topic should remind Australian law schools of their role in supporting law students’ writing skills. There is a strong connection between the standard of law students’ writing and their results at university, 3 and writing is still the main medium through which law students are assessed,4 accentuating the need for law schools to support and develop their students’ writing skills. At the same time, there is clear evidence that the legal profession in a number of countries, including Australia, is less than impressed with the way that law schools support the development of their students’ written communication skills. 5 Australian law schools have been provided with a guide to good practice in relation to students’ written communication skills: the Good * Director of Academic Program, First Year, School of Law, Western Sydney University 1 Jordan Baker, ‘Writing Wrongs’, Sydney Morning Herald (Sydney, 19-20 September 2020) 22-23; Jordan Baker, ‘The Sydney School that Bucked the Trend and got Boys to Succeed in English’, Sydney Morning Herald (online, 17 September 2020)<[https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-sydney-school-that-bucked-the-trend-and](https://www.smh.com.au/national/the-sydney-school-that-bucked-the-trend-and)got-boys-to-succeed-in-english-20200916-p55waz.html> . 2 See generally Ilana Snyder, The Literacy Wars: Why Teaching Children to Read and Write is a Battleground in Australia (Allen and Unwin, 2008) . 3 See generally Jessica L Clark, 'Grades Matter; Legal Writing Grades Matter Most'(2013) 32(3) Mississippi College Law Review 375. 4 Samantha Hardy, 'Why Teach Writing Skills to Law Students?' (2005) Unpublished article 5, citing ME Gale, 'Legal Writing: The Impossible Takes a Little Longer'(1979-1980) 44 Albany Law Review 298, 300-301; Simon Knight et al, 'Designing Academic Writing Analytics for Civil Law Student Self-Assessment' (2018) 28(1) International Journal of Artificial Intelligence in Education 1, 1. 5 Sandra Noakes, ‘”Reality Check”: Supporting Law Student Diversity and Achievement through a Novel Model of Support and Assessment of Academic Literacy: Student Perceptions, Retention and Performance’ (2020) The Law Teacher 3-5 (online) <[https://doi.org/10.1080/03069400.2020.1794199](https://doi.org/10.1080/03069400.2020.1794199)>. Practice Guide for Threshold Learning Outcome 5 (‘GPG’), 6 which was commissioned by the Legal Education Associate Deans’ Network following the publication of the Threshold Learning Outcomes (‘TLOs’) for law degrees. Three of the key recommendations of the GPG are that writing support at law school should be fully embedded with discipline content, that it should be underpinned by an understanding of how students learn literacy, and that there should be collaboration between discipline academics and academic language and learning (‘ALL’) experts. The study discussed in this article employed mixed methods research to examine the experience of both students and law academicsin relation to the implementation of a writing program based on the GPG recommendations (‘the Writing Program’) . Its main findings are that, whilst academics may find some aspects of embedded writing programs challenging, th

FAQs

Why is supporting law students’ writing skills important in Australian law schools?

Writing standards are linked to university results, and writing remains the main assessment medium. The legal profession has also expressed dissatisfaction with how law schools develop written communication skills.

What guidance does the Good Practice Guide provide for writing support in law degrees?

It recommends that writing support be fully embedded with discipline content, underpinned by how students learn academic literacy, and supported through collaboration between discipline academics and academic language and learning experts.

What did the study find about the writing program based on the Good Practice Guide?

The study reports that embedded writing programs can be challenging for academics but create opportunities to learn subject content through writing. Quantitative results indicate improved performance for some students who may not have been traditionally admitted.

Sep 5, 2026

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