Being a Writing Teacher

Teachers writing in the classroom ‘provides an opportunity to share what they love about the writing process’ (Chamberlain, 2017).

It is powerful when teachers write, “…in the presence of their classes” (Bearne, 2002).

Are you a writing teacher or a teacher of writing?

Aim

To engage in an inquiry about pedagogical choices in relation to the teaching and learning of writing.

Intended Outcome

To develop capacity for reflective practice with an inquiry approach to inform the design and delivery of powerful teaching and deep learning of writing for the full flourishing of all learners.

Learning Experience 1: Consider the ‘talk’ around reading and writing in your classroom

Read the following quotes and respond to the prompt questions. Share your reflections with your colleagues:

‘…reading and writing float on a sea of talk’ (Britton, 1983).

‘Spoken language underpins the development of reading and writing’ (Cox, 2012).

a) What pedagogical choices are you making to ‘open up spaces of meaning that allow learners to think critically about deep questions, to see layers of meaning, and to re-imagine themselves and the world?’ (Horizons of Hope (HoH), Teachers as Designers, Consider Pedagogical Choices)

‘Ensure that your classroom is a place where children have the time and space to write’ (Chamberlain, 2017).

b) What time and space is given to writing for learners in your classroom?

c) How does learning about writing in your classroom ‘enable learners to progress their knowledge, skills and capabilities, and to develop dispositions’ of writers? (HoH, Teachers as Designers, Consider Experiences for Learners)

‘To read is to think about meaning; to write is to make thinking visible as language. To do both is to become both the teller and the told in the dialogue of the imagination’ (Meek, 1991).

d) How does learning about writing in your classroom enable animated learners to ‘flourish through being creative, curious and open-minded?’ (HoH Learning Schema: Learning and Teaching in a Catholic School’)

As children get older they begin to be able ‘to identify the interplay of reading and writing and its impact on their development as writers in terms of being able to widen their vocabulary because of their rich reading experiences’ (Chamberlain, 2017).

e) What do you understand by the phrase, ‘rich reading experiences’?

Learning experience 2: Austin’s butterfly

‘How will I actively engage with learners in ongoing assessment and the identification of appropriate success criteria and learning goals?’ (HoH Teachers as Designers, Consider Evidence of Learning)

‘Powerful Teaching uses evidence to provide continuous forward-focused feedback’ (HoH Learning Schema: Learning and Teaching in a Catholic School, Powerful Teaching)

View the video Austin’s butterfly and reflect on the learning process.

• What did you notice about the students and what did it make you think?
• How did teacher pedagogical choices impact on outcomes for students?
• What does this video offer about the teaching of writing?
• Which quote/s do you see Austin’s butterfly reflected in?

Write a reflection in response to the following question:

What change does it prompt in you as a writing teacher?

Learning Experience 3: A writing teacher

3a. One of the aims of the Victorian Curriculum: English is to ensure that students:

• appreciate, enjoy and use the English language in all its variations and develop a sense of its richness and power to evoke feelings, convey information, form ideas, facilitate interaction with others, entertain, persuade and argue

The purpose of descriptive writing is to create a picture in the reader's mind as if the reader were actually there. This is achieved through concrete and vivid details of features and appearance, behaviour, qualities, living environment, purpose and so on. Description occurs in many different factual texts and is the second, and important, stage of an information report. In literary texts, description is the essence of scene setting and characterisation - the imagine world needs to be invoked for readers capture their attention and motivate them to read on.

Read and reflect on the following descriptive excerpts. Which piece of writing are you drawn to and why? What strategies did the authors used to make these descriptions powerful?

The plane was still coughing. Smoke was leaking from both it's lungs. When it crashed, three deep gashes were made in the earth. It's wings were now sawn-off arms. No more flapping. Not for this metallic little bird. After a small collection of minutes, the smoke exhausted itself. There was nothing left to give.

From Zusak, Markus. (2007). The book thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, p10.

When we came down from the mountain, Ozren asked if I wanted to go to the hospital, to see his boy. I didn't. I hate hospitals. Always have. Sometimes, on weekends, when the housekeeper had the day off, my mother would drag me with her on her rounds. The bright lights, the sludge green walls, the noise of metal on metal, the sheer bloody misery hanging over the halls like a shroud - I hated the lot of it. The coward in me has total control of my imagination in hospitals. I see myself in every bed: in the traction device or unconscious on the gurney, using blood into drainage bags, hooked up to urinary catheters. Every face is my own face. It's like those kids’ flip books where you keep the same head but keep changing the bodies. Pathetic, I know. Can't help it, though. And Mum wondered why I didn't want to be a doctor.

From Brooks, Geraldine. (2008). People of the book. Pymble, N.S.W : Fourth Estate, p37.

3b. A Literary Description has a Social purpose

Literary descriptions describe the characteristic features of a particular person, place or object (often imaginative). They do not always stand alone, and are often embedded in literary texts such as narratives. (Humphrey, 2012)

The next task is to write a literary description for the image provided as a stimulus. Working with a partner, take 5 minutes to dialogue about the image using the following questions as prompts:

• What do you see in the image?
• What might you hear?
• Why might that be happening?
• What else might be happening?
• What might the people in the image be feeling? Thinking? Wondering? Hoping?
• What experience do you have to connect you with what’s happening?
• What does this image make you wonder and ask?

1. On your laptop, complete an extended written response about the image.
2. Spend time in a silent print walk reading and considering the writing of others.
3. Return to your table, reflect on your own writing and make any improvement edits in light of what you’ve read and upload it to your school’s Google+ community.
4. Create a wall display using an A3 copy of the image and final, hard copies of the team’s response.
5. In small groups, reflect critically on your writing experience. What change does this experience prompt in you as a teacher of writing? Share with the broader group.

Using the change this experience has prompted in the way you teach writing, use an image of your choice to facilitate a writing session for your students. The writing completed by your students will be needed for the next session to discuss the following questions:

What did you do differently in your teaching of writing?

What do notice about your students’ writing as a result of what you did differently?

Learning Experience 4: Reflection on action

Resources needed:

• 1 x hard copy of English modes scope and sequence between 2 participants

Please select the appropriate English by modes year level document from the VCAA English scope and sequence page

• Student writing samples from learning experience 3b.

What did you do differently in your teaching of writing?

What do notice about your students’ writing as a result of what you did differently?

Using what you reflected on in learning experience 2, how could you incorporate feedback into the process of writing?

Using a hard copy of the Victorian Curriculum English modes scope and sequence, work in pairs to highlight where the progression of learning is found in composing description across Levels F - 6.

References

Bearne, E (2002). Making Progress in Writing. London: Routledge Falmer

Britton, J (1983). Writing and the Story of the World, in Kroll, B M and Wells, C G (eds) Explorations in the Development of Writing: Theory, Research, and Practice. New York, NY: Wiley.

Brooks, Geraldine. (2008). People of the book. Pymble, N.S.W : Fourth Estate.

Chamberlain, Liz (2017). Inspiring Writing in Primary Schools. Exeter: Sage Publications.

Cox, R (ed.) (2012). Primary English Teaching - An introduction to Language, Literacy and Learning. Sydney: PETAA.

Humphrey, S, Droga, L and Feez, S (2012). Grammar and Meaning. Sydney: PETAA.

Meek, M (1991). On Being Literate. London: The Bodley Head.

VCAA. http://victoriancurriculum.vcaa.vic.edu.au/english/introduction/rationale-and-aims

Zusak, Markus. (2007). The book thief. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.

image from https://www.pinterest.com.au/pin/508414245424652629/