What was going on for our students?
At the beginning of this year, we scanned through our data and decided to focus on student engagement, particularly in writing. Our hunch was that our students did not see themselves as writers. There was a need to create an environment and mindset where our students saw themselves as authors, readers, mathematicians, artists, musicians, etc. An environment where there was a clear focus on building a community of writers - expectations, authentic, real audience, making connections beyond the school environment where surface features impact on the audience.
Taking Action
- Changing mindset to “ I am a writer."
- Teaching targeted sessions where all aspects of writing are modelled (brainstorming, planning, proofreading, editing and sharing - feedback/feedforward).
- Slowing the whole writing process down, getting away from boring weekend recounts, taking away the pressure to write a new piece daily.
- Talking to and getting to know my students, encouraging oral storytelling, taking note of interests, etc to help them make connections and write when they are ‘stuck’.
- Sharing writing on an author’s chair; hearing other’s ideas, vocabulary choice and giving and receiving feedback.
- Accessing and using online resources such as The Literacy Shed and Pobble, with a clear purpose.
- Daily 5 reading programme (Reading to Someone, Read to Self, Work on Writing, Listening to Reading and Word Work).
- Having a large part of the school library in our learning environment that students access.
- Seek out online resources that allow students to create books from their writing in an easy to use format (Story Jumper).
- Contacting and utilising RT: Lit specialists.
Did this make a difference? ABSOLUTELY
Students are wanting to write and asking to write all day every day, especially the boys.
Students are actively seeking out writing buddies to collaborate and write with, even in ‘My Time”.
Writing levels have improved from the writing sample we did at the beginning of term 2. The evidence can be seen in students individual All About Me books (Writing and writing matrix).
Surface features have improved, there is more punctuation being used (capital letters, full stops), and other punctuation being used (speech marks). Students have an authentic audience and if they want them to understand what they are wanting to share they have to ensure that their writing meets the purpose.
There may not have been progress in levels (e.g. Level 1 iii to Early Level 2) at anniversary reporting dates but there has been significant progress made within the level. (Evidence in All About Me books). When assessing writing at the end of the year all students who were below their expected level are now achieving at.
Students are actively searching out books (picture and short novels) that reflect or support the themes or learning goals in writing.
Students are actively looking for ‘golden’ vocabulary in the text we are reading (both reading aloud and reading to) to use in their writing.
Students want to share their writing with each other and the whole team and produce books of their own (on paper at this stage mainly then moving onto Google docs and Story Jumper). ESOL student is writing and sharing, Elective mutes (2) are writing collaboratively, low achievers in writing are writing stories and reading aloud to the Whenua Team.
Once we had them hooked, collaborative writing empower students to co-construct knowledge, discuss themes, plots, outcomes - feed off one another to improve their writing. Use of google docs enables this, however it was vital that students could share their writing online and be at the level of Redefinition for SAMR Model, not substitution.
Our end of year data reflects the huge gains students have made in writing, in particular, our priority students who have all achieved Early Level 2 of the curriculum!
What now?
Students we will have as Year 4s have already indicated what writing and digital presentations they want to do in 2018 (Whenua News “Kids No. 1 News, Documentaries, Short Movies, animated stories) All of which require a strong writing foundation
Engage students with a dialogic journal where they write once a week - ‘talking, telling and sharing’ in a private and confidential format. It is important that I respond back with a comment, directly related to the content of their dialogue, so that they recognise that it is valued.
Exploring sustainable online tools and how we can further engage our writers- E.g. Story Jumper
Engage learners with more real-world problem-solving tasks that enable innovation through the use of ICT that require students to organise thinking, share ideas, collate and collaborate - not be passive recipients of knowledge.
Resources I have found invaluable
Text
- Writing Essentials Regie Routman, 2005
- Passionate Readers Pernille Ripp, 2018
- Reimagining Literacy Through Global Collaboration Pernille Ripp, 2017
- Writing Voice - Creating Communities of Writers Teresa Cremin & Debra Myhill, 2012
- Read and Retell Hazel Brown & Brian Cambourne, 1990
