Catherine Agrotis

Bachelor of Arts (Professional Writing) 2003

SECONDARY SCHOOL ENGLISH AND HUMANITIES teacher Catherine Agrotis, says playing a key role in developing and extending young minds is ‘just the best reward’. "Taking students of weaker abilities and tutoring them for a year is one of the great things about my job. I love seeing students that had previously not enjoyed writing, grow to love it and want to excel in all areas" she said.

Catherine, who is currently a teacher in the Middle School at Beaconhills College in Melbourne Victoria, explained that she enjoys her varied and challenging role.

"My job requires me to implement curriculum for students across the middle school in English, Humanities (Geography, History, SOSE), work as part of a team in order to write curriculum documentation and planners, work with students as part of smaller groups to tutor and enhance their learning style and liaise between parents, students and their relevant teaching groups."

"However, the area I enjoy most is creating different lessons for different needs within the classroom—which is often challenging. I also enjoy writing curriculum as it allows me to see the entire scope and sequence of it for the year and I can have a direct impact on subject content to make it as enjoyable as possible for the students," she said.

Graduating from the Melbourne Campus at Burwood with a Bachelor of Arts in 2003 with majors in Professional Writing and History, Catherine believes that the skills she developed during her degree have been invaluable in the classroom.

"The writing and editing skills that I learned at Deakin are implemented in my classroom every day. I constantly teach my students the editing skills necessary to read through work with purpose and find errors."

For Catherine the diversity and flexibility of the Arts course at Deakin was the major reason she chose to study at Deakin. "I undertook the Deakin course because I love writing and all the elements associated with it. The course was diverse enough to get a range of experiences in writing different genres for various audiences. The flexibility of the course enabled me to express myself in different writing styles and work with different tutors and students."

"The course has taught me to synthesise my writing. I help the students learn to read other people’s writing and take those ideas to form their own stories," she said. As for the future, Catherine would like to take on a key position in curriculum research and development at Beaconhills College and ‘put her skills to the test’ to write a book.

"I do intend to use my Professional Writing degree to write a novel—I think that’s everyone’s dream!" she said

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