“Children want to write. They want to write the first day they attend school” Donald Graves, (1983). This is very important for teachers to remember when they enter a classroom. All the faces looking up at you want to write and communicate their ideas, memories, thoughts and feelings. The initial excitement may have waned due to frustration or bad writing experiences, but the eagerness is still there. We as teachers must find ways to incorporate learning to write and represent into daily classroom life in a manner that is rewarding and challenging to students. We must remember to arouse every child’s interest regardless of ability. We are charged with the duty of teaching children to become independent thinkers and give them the ability to confidently communicate their thoughts and ideas about the world around them.
It is important for writing scaffolding to continue from grade to grade in a consistent manner. In this way, IRPs should be a good framework for this in BC.
The fact that the PLOs repeat themselves from year to year in a spiraling context where students are learning similar things at increasing complexity lends itself to a continuity of learning. I believe that the prescribed learning outcomes are very useful for creating an environment for children to write. There are 10 plo’s in grade 3 that specifically relate to writing. This means that every classroom must make time for writing, which is important because good writing requires that considerable time be spent on it. Writing and rewriting is necessary to create better text. Student must learn that the first draft is not the last draft and that successful writing goes through many stages before the final product is generated. Writing strategies are imbedded into the plos. PLOs C4 through to C6 in grade 3 use implementation of strategies prior to writing, during writing and after writing(pg. 107). All three phases of writing have various strategies that help students become better writers. It is nice to see that teachers across B.C. will all be using strategy techniques to improve writing ability in the classroom. The problem is that there are many strategies that may or may not work for every child in every classroom. For example, the prewrite strategy may not work for the perfectionist child that cannot possibly write incorrectly spelled words on purpose and leave them to write down more ideas. Therefore teachers must know their students and apply those strategies that will benefit them the most.
It is important to teach students that writing is a learning process that will continue throughout their lives. Learning the basic conventions of writing is just the beginning in path of writing to create meaning. Although these conventions (capitals, punctuation, and spelling), and writing traits (such as word choice, sentence structure and fluency, ideas, and voice) are not the end of the path, competency in these certainly make the trip more enjoyable for both reader and writer.
The IRP believes “Teaching grammar outside of the students’ writing experiences, such as using grammar worksheets, does not result in a transfer of skills or learning to the next writing experience”(pg 25). This would mean that the implementation of strategies during writing would have more impact for students learning conventions. As described in class, the First Steps Writing Program certainly contained numerous fun strategies for students to use to succeed in improving their writing. The “have a go” idea for spelling allows children the freedom to make mistakes more than once in order to search for the correct spelling of a word. I know I still use this from time to time when a word looks wrong, I will try spelling it a variety of ways until it looks right or I check a dictionary. Many children’s writing, especially in the lower grades, would benefit hugely from having appropriate spacing. The idea of making popsicle sticks into spacemen called space explorer spacer makes it fun rather than work. I also thought that the benefits of having the class work together to adapt lessons for the students who were exceptional was a great way to promote inclusion. It would also make the lesson more memorable because the students had a personal connection to it. They would have to able to identify what aspect of writing was being taught and find other ways of getting to that goal. A great way of learning something well is to try to teach it to someone else.
The main drive in the early years must be for children to put pencil to paper and write. If there is no writing, there can be no scaffolding, no correcting, thus no learning. As Esther Gray points out “In order to become literate, students must not only master spelling, syntax and genre, but they must also have success experiences in which reading and writing serve purposes that they care about.” (2001). This means we, as teachers must address relevancy of writing material to create motivation to write. Also we need to have a safe, welcoming and secure environment for students to be able to write and share in order to learn. It also mentions this need for learning about writing to come from the act itself in the IRP when they state ”We believe that writing is learned in the act of writing itself with the support of a knowledgeable teacher. “(IRP pg. 22 (Reid, Schultze, Peterson, 2005, pg8)) Gray goes on to say “Teachers of writing know how to teach editing. What we can’t readily elicit in some students is the courage and conviction to put words on paper”(2001). The writing strategy advocated by Gray is inquiry-based learning where students choose the subject matter that interests them, form groups and independently research the topic and write about their findings. Groups generally include various writing abilities where those highly abled are models for those that may be struggling. The interesting part about this approach is that the children struggling with their writing ability may be praised within the group for their knowledge of the subject matter. This gives them the confidence they need to write more, which in turn improves their writing ability.
When Robin Stevenson said, “ you are the only one who can write this story” it made me think this is a very empowering statement that not only supports student’s abilities, but also reinforces their own individuality. I think the example of the creative writing workshop she shared with us in class where the story characters are created in a group setting, then students write an individual story and come back together to compare would really emphasize this idea that only you can write your story. Although all the students start at the same point, they would all diverge and produce widely different interpretations. This could help to create understanding in the classroom and respect for individual writing styles.
Sharing writing with peer groups for feedback is a great way to support learning in the classroom. Writing workshops, author’s chair, podcasts, classroom book libraries, newspapers, bulletin boards are all ways to share writing within the class. When students share work, they create classroom camaraderie and learn to trust that other students will respect their creations, especially when imparting personal writing that includes emotions and experiences. Teachers need to share their writing with students as well so that they can create connections and so that they can model what good writing looks like. The teacher may even bring in rough drafts in order to model the writing process and work with the class as a group with the draft to show how to edit a piece of writing.
I believe that it is important to teach students how to be able to write to be understood. I also believe that teachers must empower their students with the desire to write and the belief that they have something to say that others should hear. In every literacy class we must remember, children want to write, we just need to show them how.
References
Graves, Donald (1983) Writing: Teachers and children at work. Portsmouth, NH: Heinmann.
Gray, Esther N. (2001) A Literacy Growth Spurt during Inquiry: Tommy’s Story National Council of Teachers of English.
Reid, J., Schultze, B., with Petersen, U. (2006). What’s next for this beginning writer? Markham, ON: Pembroke Publishers.
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