- Welcome to the second segment
of our special three-part series
inspired by the Australian Writing Survey in Queensland
conducted in partnership between the Department of Education
and the Institute of Learning Sciences
and Teacher Education or ILSTE from 2016 to 2017.
You may wish to view the first segment
where Pascalle presents an overview of the survey
and hones in on two considerations.
Creating a positive school-wide writing culture
and incorporating the dual focus
of learning to write and writing to learn.
To read the findings of the survey,
you can access ILSTE's final report
or view their presentation reframing the middle year slump,
writing pedagogy, progression, plateau, and closing the gap.
These can both be applied to your school's context
when considering what is required for writing improvement.
In this segment, Pascalle considers the notion
of the writing teacher
and how modelling and joint construction
play parts in the gradual release of responsibility
in student writing.
I encourage you to reflect on how
teachers in your school might be further empowered
in seeing themselves as expert writing teachers
and how it might be used to leverage writing improvement
across the curriculum.
- Part two of this series, responding
to the Australian Writing Survey
takes into consideration teachers' perceptions
of themselves as writers
which can impact how writing is taught and modelled.
What does it mean to be a teacher who writes?
Hasty and Hauptman state that
good writing instruction hinges on students
seeing themselves as writers,
yet that equally essential and often missing
from scholarly conversation around writing instruction,
is that teachers must see themselves as writers
in order to teach writing.
Kremen and Oliver maintain that our writer identities
are likely to influence how we teach writing
and that multiple tensions exist
relating to low self-confidence
and negative writing histories.
Can sharing writing with students
influence them to become more serious
about their own writing?
When students see their teachers write,
they witness examples of writerly thinking
and the inherent motivational and personal values.
It is compelling to use modelling, think-alouds
and joint construction in class
to not only demonstrate writing
but to build a classroom community of trust and credibility.
These kinds of activities highlight cognitive processes,
writing and self-regulation strategies,
and the features of writing for specific purposes.
They also take time, but it's worth it.
Preparation might include practising writing a task
you set for your students,
taking notice of the ideas, decisions, doubts, frustrations,
and mistakes and changes you make along the way.
This requires a level of confidence to take risks
and show vulnerability,
but it ultimately teaches students that
writing includes these kinds of choices and experiences.
Modelling and joint construction fit in
with Fisher and Frey's gradual release of responsibility.
Moving from the teacher directing learning,
to a point where students take responsibility
for their own learning process.
It can be applied to writing-in-progress,
to finalised exemplars of effective writing,
and it's important to show writing at students' levels too.
These activities work as required with the whole class,
small groups or with individual students
in order to pitch the writing slightly
above where students are.
And it's important to select suitable materials
or technologies,
whether it's on paper, whiteboard, a document viewer,
or even a video clip that has been pre-recorded.
Essentially, modelling gives students a starting point
and helps them have the confidence to try it themselves
because they have seen it done.
Modelling includes the following
and can be adapted to suit your context.
Tell students what you will be modelling
and ask them to pay attention to the decisions
you make as you write
because they will be doing the same task afterwards.
Keep in mind though that it's important
that students are encouraged to think for themselves.
Rather than tell them what to write and think,
you are showing them how you write and think.
As you write, make verbal statements
that describe your decision making processes.
This is called a think-aloud.
Ask students to comment
on what they noticed about your thinking,
how the writing progressed,
and how they think it might influence their own writing.
And note that for best outcomes,
students practise the skills or strategies
directly after the teacher models.
Joint construction or collaborative writing
moves the gradual release forward
where the group works towards a common writing goal.
The teacher takes on the role of a facilitator
and generates and records ideas and enables discussion.
Students contribute their ideas
and the teacher builds on and incorporates the suggestions.
Students respond to other's contributions
and the group reflects on the effectiveness
of the collaborative effort.
Here are some ideas to make writing visible
in lessons in any learning area.
Discuss what the task is asking
in terms of purpose, audience, the degree of formality,
or suitable vocabulary, tents and style.
Take notes in preparation to write
extracting main ideas from sources
or finding evidence to support or change understanding.
Use appropriate pre-writing graphic organisers
to gather ideas that can later be refined.
The department provides examples
of different pre-writing organisers.
For instance, the planning chapter in episode four
of "How to teach writing" online module
or throughout the "Getting kids writing: one sentence
at a time" materials.
Produce a draught or a section of a draught
such as an introduction or conclusion
or focus on linking one paragraph to the next.
Read an exemplar and look at what works
and what could be improved.
Show how to edit
from sentence level to text structure and sequence.
The main concept is for teachers to see themselves
as confident writers who share
and teach writing across the curriculum.
How is writing made visible in your school?
Are modelling and joint construction strategies
used regularly in class and understood to be effective
when used in balance with independent writing?
Even if this is the case, when prompted,
do teachers indicate they would value
capability development sessions on how to model
or facilitate collaborative writing?
Our final segment in this series
will consider assessing the quality of students' writing
and providing useful feedback.
This segment has been informed by the following research.
For more research by support regarding teaching writing,
visit the department's Literacy P-12 site,
the "How to teach writing" online module,
the Reading and Writing Centre,
or the "Getting kids writing: one sentence at a time"
ed studio.