Concepts in Writing Instruction

Concepts in Writing Instruction 

 In a previous post, I had mentioned how important it was for students to identify and use different strategies that can help them during the writing process. I also mentioned that these will not only help students to better structure their ideas and their writing, but it will help them identify which strategies that work for them and which strategies that do not. These  concepts in writing instruction are: 

• Self-Regulated Strategy Development (SRSD) and is used for writing where the focus is on learning tasks specific strategies for composing.  This approach was developed by Graham, Harris, Read and Ryan (1992), and is designed to make the use of strategies habitual, flexible and automatic in writing.

• The PLAN and WRITE strategy. This strategy explicitly teaches strategies for preparing and organizing the writing task, and revising and editing.

Let us now look into each strategy in a little more depth…

1. SELF-REGULATED STRATEGY DEVELOPMENT (SRSD)

 Graham, Harris, MacArthur, & Schwartz, (1991); Harris & Graham, (1996) developed a form of cognitive approach referred to as the self-regulated strategy development (SRSD) model where students “ learn task-specific strategies for composing, such as planning and revising, and this learning is scaffold to help them master the use of the strategies” (Graham, Harris, MacArthur & Schwartz, 1991).  

Since these strategies include self-regulatory procedures such as goal setting, self-instructions, and self-monitoring, it is important that teachers model these behaviours and practices so that students learn how to use these strategies in the most effective way possible, and to their advantage.

The SRSD approach identifies quite a number of stages involved in writing instruction. These stages take place over two or more weeks, as teachers scaffold students' learning, gradually transferring responsibility for independent use of the target strategy. Harris & Graham (1996) identify the stages as:

1. Developing (or activating) students' background knowledge.
This involves developing pre-skills for individual student’s learning deficits

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2. Discussing and describing the target strategy to be learned and obtaining students' commitment for learning.

3. Teacher modeling strategy use and self-regulatory statements. (teachers should use think-alouds at this stage)

4. Mastery (memorization) of any strategy mnemonics or routines.

5. Collaborative practice, in which teachers support the students' use of strategy in large or small groups of students.  

6. Independent practice, when instructional cues are gradually faded. (independent practice)

From my readings, I also understood that the SRSD strategy is also broken down in two sub-strategies which facilitates the SRSD model.

1. TWA- (Think before reading, Think while reading, Think after reading)

As you may realize, this strategy encourages students to think during three points in their writing - before reading (about the author’s purpose, what the student wants to know and learn), during reading (about reading speed, linking knowledge, and rereading parts), and after reading (about the main idea, summarizing information, and what the student has learned). (Joe Savrock. 2007)

2. PLAN AND WRITE STRATEGY

The steps to this method are as follows; students should:

1. Pay attention to prompts

2. List Main ideas

3. Add supporting details

4. Number your ideas.

 (and)

5. Work on your plan to develop/create a thesis statement.

6. Remember you goals

7. Include transition words

8. Try to use different kinds of sentences-long, short etc

9. Exciting Words- use varied words that will bring out the piece. 

I think that this SRSD strategy can be of beneficial use to both the teachers and the students. Writing can be a difficult task for adults like myself, especially so for students who are novice writer, in the process of identifying and developing their writing skills. These strategies will be even more useful for students who find the writing process to be overwhelming and have difficulties planning, organizing and expressing their thoughts into something that will be readable and make sense to other people. I also believe that in order for students to truly benefit from the use of these strategies, teachers MUST first model the strategies in the most simple and comprehensive way to students.

The Reading-Writing Connection

The Reading-Writing Connection

I think that many persons consider these two language arts as the most important ones-reading and writing.  I also think that it is for this reason, more emphasis is now placed on connecting these two language arts, although I already believe that they go hand in hand.

The booklet I was required to read for this entry explores the connection of reading and writing, mainly in the teaching of poetry. As we all know, poetry is an integral element of the language arts curriculum, and also one of the topics that students tend to be most afraid of or shy away from. When reading and interacting with the information, all I could have remembered was my English lecturer telling us how important it is for students to firstly enjoy a poem before they analyze it. When I first heard him say that, I thought that, that statement goes against everything I was supposedly ‘taught’ at school. However, my experience during this course and this new information has taught me that it is important that students firstly interact with the poem as a whole, before breaking it down.  It is important that students be introduced to a poem in a way that will encourage them to want to really study it.

Let me jump a few sections….

During my readings, one thing that fascinated me (after confusing me) was that the research had shown that students are naturally more developmentally ready to write than to read and that also teachers should  introduce students to reading by writing. 

I have lived most of my life, believing and practicing that children learn to write through reading, and of course, this has implicated my teaching. However, it is never too late to learn. But upon reading and understanding the document, I have come to realize that it makes some sense, because thinking about my 3 yr old cousin, who scribbles anything and everything and then comes to explain to you what she has‘written’. To us, what she has makes no sense, but to her, it does, to the point where she can explain to someone what she has written because her ideas are clear and concrete and comprehensible to her. For this reason, maybe it will work to the advantage of the students if they are exposed to writing before reading…..but…how will you know what you can write or what to right…if you do not know the words to use or …. how to read???? Unless you are a 3 year old with a wild imagination…You feel me??

Anyway…I guess I am still a novice English teacher, I anticipate that as I grow and develop in teaching English Language, all these concepts and theories will eventually become clearer to me. 

Another interesting part of my reading that I had already mentioned was the concept of Holism, which basically is firstly considering {a poem} as a whole, before breaking in down and analyzing it. Since the readings was focused on poetry, I understand that when Holism is applied in poetry in the classroom,  the teacher reads the entire poem to the students, emphasizing background information which would foster a keener interest in reading the poem. I also expect that holism would involve presenting the poem in a way to students that they would enjoy and be excited about. By using this concept to introduce poetry, students will be provided with adequate information that will enable them to approach the poem more critically…when the time for that comes.

From my readings and from my teacher training thus far, I have been told that writing should always be student centered and not teacher centered.  But how do you make you lesson students-centered, specifically writing lessons? I think this is the point where the integration of the two arts comes to the forefront. I believe that in order for teachers to FACILITATE good writing in students, teachers should provide many opportunities for students to read, however, this goes against my first point where reading should be taught through writing, but I guess this is just reflective of the fact that both arts are indeed integrated. I believe that good readers become good writers and good writers are good readers.

From my discussion, I anticipate that you would already know that one of the obstacles that I would face is probably teaching writing before reading. But to overcome this, I plan on getting strategies that will allow me to marry the two concepts even further. I also have to be careful that I do not influence students’ writing in such a way that it no longer reflects their own. I think that by making lessons more student-centered, students will also begin to develop and strengthen their critical thinking, analytical and creative skills.

One recommendation that I would make to teachers, especially myself, about implementing these procedures is to get proper training and resources that will allow and help you to implement the strategies in the most effective way possible.

Writing Instruction

Writing Instruction

From the readings, videos and presentations, I have become more aware of the importance of having students go through the entire writing process in order for them to develop as effective writers. Although from my previous courses I have learned that students need to consider different pre writing strategies such as brainstorming and graphically organizing their ideas,  this new information have enabled me to see in depth the benefits of these strategies and how they can be applied in the classroom. Some effective pre-writing strategies as highlighted in my readings are:

• ·         Creating Lists/Listing

• ·         Free Writing

• ·         Blind Writing (this one was new to me)

• ·         Use of Graphic Organizers

• ·         Brain storming

• ·         The Questioning strategy (my favourite)

If students are introduced to a variety of strategies that they can use, then they will be better able to assess which strategies work for them, which strategies they are comfortable or familiar with and which strategies they don’t like or are not comfortable with. The new information has presented me with a number of strategies that can be used to help facilitate writing in the classroom, and which will also help students develop proper antics and approaches to writing.

Below are some strategies that can be used with your students to practice effective brain storming:

PRACTICE

HOW?

• ·         Have students see how they use brainstorming throughout their daily activities.

• ·         Incorporate brainstorming into anything you can think of and your students will receive many    chances to practice as the days go by.

 BE ENTHUSIASTIC

HOW?

• ·         Present yourself as someone who is just as excited about each new idea that your students come up with. Ask probing question to help them delve deeper into their ideas.

• ·         Comment on the breadth and depth of their thinking, and the students will be encouraged to work even harder.

• ·         If a student has an idea that impresses you or that you find very original and creative, be sure to share this with the other students and let everyone know that they too can develop such diverse ideas.

• ·         Always have a positive attitude.

• ·         Be ready and willing to give feedback to students.

CHOOSE TOPICS WELL

HOW?

·          

• Choose topics that the students will be interested and excited about writing. To do this you may have to do interest inventories with students to find out what their interests are, what they like and don’t like. You will need to take into account students’ age group, level of maturity etc.

• ·         Be sure to choose topics that give students the opportunities to generate many varied ideas.

• ·         Encourage divergent thinking and originality. Good brainstorming is more than coming up with lots of ideas; how unique and different they are is as important as how many there are.

• ·         Always ask students many different questions that will allow them to think about many aspect of a topic.

REREAD IDEAS OFTEN

HOW?

• ·         Rereading students’ ideas often and aloud to the class will not only reinforce the importance of their ideas, but it will also encourage other students to strive to get better ideas.

• ·         This strategy reminds students of the ideas that have already been mentioned and discussed.

• ·         Hearing the ideas or suggestions of other can also lead students to think at a wider range and come up with new, more creative and innovative ideas.

COUNT THE IDEAS

HOW?

• ·         As students give ideas, write them on the blackboard and periodically count the number of ideas that they have come up with. Students themselves will be amazed at the number of ideas that they have generated and may be excited to come up with even more ideas.

• ·         You can create targets by giving a number as to how many ideas students should aim for, this can turn it into a very exciting experience for them. This will also encourage students to think even deeper to come up with ideas.

• ·         Always commend students on the number of ideas that they have.

CATEGORIZE BIG LISTS

HOW?

• ·         This strategy may come in handy when you are dealing with a topic which has many different parts or elements to it.

• ·         After students have presented many ideas for the topic, together you and the students can come up with different categories to place the ideas.

• ·         Since the ideas are just written on the board, you may choose to use colour coding strategies to group the ideas into their categories.

• ·         There are also other tools that can be useful in helping you to categorize the ideas such as web diagrams, Venn diagrams, tables and clusters.

KEEP IDEAS AROUND

HOW?

• ·         Have students write down the ideas that they have come up with in their notebooks for future referencing.

• ·         Since you will be showing students how to incorporate brainstorming into their everyday lives, it will be fun for the students to see their ideas posted all over the classroom. This shows students that the thought and contributions were well appreciated. This will work to your benefit in the future as students will be more willing and excited to participate in the brainstorming activities.