- Hello, and welcome to the first in a three-part series
motivated by the Australian Writing Survey in Queensland.
The survey was completed by 600
Queensland state school teachers,
cross-curricular and across stages,
from 55 schools around the state.
We value the opportunity to gain an understanding
of how writing is taught and assessed in Queensland,
and we appreciate the teachers
who took the time to respond to the survey.
The outcomes were delivered by Professor Claire Wyatt-Smith
and Christine Jackson in their dynamic presentation,
"Reframing the Middle Years Slump,
Writing Pedagogy: Progression, Plateau and Closing the Gap",
and you may wish to view this presentation
to consider how the findings apply to your school's context.
Today, Pascalle will give an overview of the research
and look at one of the considerations of the research,
which has informed the work
of the Curriculum, Teaching and Learning team
with regards to supporting writing improvement in schools.
I'd encourage you to use the segment
to consider the following prompts.
How do we nurture a positive writing culture in our school?
And how are our students learning to write
and writing to learn?
- This writing segment, and the two that accompany it,
have been prompted by the outcomes
of the Australian Writing Survey in Queensland,
which was conducted between 2016 and 2017
in partnership between the Department of Education
and the Institute of Learning Sciences
and Teacher Education, or ILSTE.
It was the first survey of its kind in Australia
and could not have been done
without the exceptional research team at ILST,
led by Professor Claire Wyatt-Smith.
Participants responded to questions about,
initial teacher education,
and how prepared they felt to teach writing
when they began teaching,
professional learning in their school,
and the writing strategies and instruction
implemented in their classroom.
It posed point in time questions
about text types, language in use,
the use of digital technologies in writing instruction,
how writing is assessed and reported,
and writing as a policy priority.
Considerations include,
the importance of making sure a shared metalanguage
for teaching and assessing writing is established,
as well as clarifying expected features of quality writing,
ensuring alignment between curriculum,
pedagogy and assessment, and their embedded writing demands,
and reflecting on writing as a personal pursuit for teachers
which can impact on modelling processes
and classroom writing culture.
Another consideration is about allocating more time
for sustained writing in all curriculum areas.
Not only do students need more opportunities to write,
they need opportunities to write longer,
more cohesive texts.
And finally, in order to build a school-wide writing culture
that focuses on teaching
discipline-specific writing practises
for sustained writing in all curriculum areas,
an overarching consideration is the benefit
of having a writing strategy that is dual in focus,
where students have opportunities for learning to write
and writing to learn.
So, what might schools do with this information?
Leaders might collaborate with staff to gauge
how writing is taught and assessed in their school,
and to consider effective evidence-based strategies
to adopt in response.
There are many resources to support schools,
from the Aspects of writing tab on the Literacy P-12 site,
to the Getting kids writing:
one sentence at a time EdStudio,
or even the other writing segments that are part of EDTV.
All our writing resources
are created with an evidence base in mind,
and take into consideration the outcomes
of the Australian Writing Survey.
In their final report, ILSTE related that,
"Currently there is a range of commercial packages
and professional development programmes
that competes for teacher and school attention and budgets.
The challenge for teachers
is the availability of validated evidence
of the effectiveness and impact of these materials."
What other steps can schools take?
There might be an opportunity
to set up an informal community of teachers
who want to share and reflect on teaching writing,
or leaders, teachers and teaching teams
can reflect on how a positive writing culture
is nurtured in their own context.
The rest of this segment will look at the considerations
around building a school-wide writing culture
with a dual focus of learning to write and writing to learn.
Graham, Harris and Santangelo note that,
"Writing and its development do not take place in a vacuum,
but in a social context
where students and the teacher interact with each other".
They say it is vital to first create a writing environment
that is positive and supportive.
In their meta-analysis of exceptional writing practises,
they recommend the following.
Establish writing routines, write regularly,
compose together, establish writing goals,
use a balance of print and digital writing tools,
and provide feedback.
They add that, "It is equally important to make sure
students acquire the skills, strategies, knowledge and will
needed to become skilled writers".
Learning to write includes teaching foundational skills
such as handwriting, keyboarding and spelling,
teaching sentence-construction skills
including grammar and punctuation,
and increasing students' knowledge about writing
such as how to gather ideas,
use different text types and structures,
and incorporate the necessary vocabulary to improve a text.
Students also need strategies to plan, draft and edit
using a range of print and digital tools,
and to incorporate the skills, strategies and knowledge
so they can use writing as a tool
to support their own learning.
This brings us to writing to learn,
where a writing activity contributes
to how students communicate their thinking
and understanding of curriculum content.
Chang et al. state that,
"Writing is a powerful way to generate learning
because writing is both a graphic product
and a process that provides the conditions
for analysis and synthesis".
It allows students to collect, organise
and reappraise their thoughts.
This level of engaging with the learning may take longer,
but it can also provide far deeper learning.
While writing to learn takes time,
it can help students integrate their prior knowledge
and make connections,
as well as elaborate on and reorganise knowledge,
or monitor their own learning as they write.
The writing can be autobiographical, critical,
metacognitive or reflective
through writing activities such as note-taking, journals,
summarising, synthesising, persuasive or creative writing.
When developing writing to learn activities
that support content learning,
Klein, Haug and Bildfell suggest the following principles.
Select a text type that supports the educational purpose.
For example, if you want students to build,
communicate and self-assess their understanding
of learning area content,
let's imagine we're learning a new concept
like the water cycle in year 7 geography.
A journal entry could be suitable
to consolidate the different processes.
It's informal and low-stakes,
it facilitates deeper understanding,
and has been shown to improve student learning outcomes.
The second principle is to provide prompts
that guide cognitive and metacognitive strategies.
In our geography journal, for instance,
the prompt could be to describe the water cycle,
provide a real-life example for each process,
and to explain if they're uncertain about anything.
This will require them to integrate new information
with their personal experience.
They will need to organise the ideas in a meaningful way
and elaborate by linking their concrete example
to the abstract process, like,
"I see transpiration when I water our plants at home
and the roots suck up water".
Metacognitive skills involve thinking about thinking,
so a student might write,
"I don't quite understand how runoff works yet".
This is incredibly useful for a teacher
and journals work best
if this metacognitive element is included.
The third principle is to teach the writing strategy first,
to ensure students are confident to write.
To continue our journal example,
there are many types of journal entries students can write,
question journals
or journals that chart changes in thinking,
or a two-way journal
where the teacher responds to the entries.
Either way, it's vital to prepare students to write
through modelling and explicit teaching.
The fourth principle,
create familiar and regular writing activities or routines.
And finally, consider differentiation,
such as the text modes, types, lengths,
and the range of writing prompts on offer,
to give students agency, motivation and engagement.
What opportunities can you take advantage of
to reflect on your school's writing culture,
how writing is taught and used within the curriculum
to impact student learning outcomes?
Tune into our next segment
in the Australian Writing Survey series,
which will focus on the benefits
of modelling writing and joint construction writing.
- [Anne] This segment has been informed
by the following research.
For more research-based support regarding teaching writing,
visit the department's Literacy P-12 site,
the Reading and Writing Centre,
or the Getting kids writing:
one sentence at a time EdStudio.