How+to+teach+writing

 ** What words say does not last. The words last. Because words are always the same, and what they say is never the same. ~Antonio Porchia, //Voces//, 1943, translated from Spanish by W.S. Merwin **

** The literacy block in schools **

In schools today, the literacy block runs for 2 hours; 1 hour for reading and 1 hour for writing. Usually, the time is divided like so:
 * whole class using modelled reading, and then shared reading
 * small groups using shared (interactive) reading, and also guided reading
 * followed with independent writing
 * and back to the whole class, to share what has been learnt.

During the writing component of this literacy block, teachers focus on the planning, composing, revising, recording and publishing of work. Children must make a variety of decisions for each focus, involving: ** || //planning// || Purpose and audience Ideas are generated and sequenced Children set goals to be met || || Generating and choosing words to meet set goals Read and reread one's writing || || Monitor writing against goals Fix problems Add missing information and delete irrelevant information, may add new information Rewrite by reorganising and resequencing ideas || || //recording// || Check spelling, print, grammar, punctuation, handwriting legibility, keyboarding and illustration || || Decisions about proofreading, layout, legibility, technology or medium used to present to an audience ||   Similar to what is used in the teaching of reading, teachers can use modelled writing (only they write, demonstrating how it is done), shared writing (the students' ideas are integrated), interactive writing (sharing the pen) and guided writing (small groups, allowing individuals to write in these groups). Also, if students are grouped according to concepts they need to improve on, teachers can set up "mini-lessons" focusing on different ideas, including composing, editing, or revising. **Independent writing—the writing conference** When children write on their own, teachers can undergo "roving conferences", in which they visit each child as they write. They must sit at the same level as the child so to minimise possible feelings of intimidation, and encourage the child to talk about their work by opening up about their own experiences. Teachers should not comment on the mechanics (e.g. punctuation, spelling) of a child's work until the piece is ready for publication, to keep the child's mind on their ideas, and not on becoming a "perfectionist".
 * ** Authorial roles
 * || //composing//
 * || //revising//
 * **Secretarial roles**
 * || //publishing//
 * Ways to teach writing   **


 * What are multiliteracies? **

Today, more than ever, young children are exposed to a variety of media types. With the introduction of the internet and the improvement of computers, children are able to use CD-Roms of books, play games online, and communicate with others through email. Through this, children are being exposed to new sign systems, which they learn to understand to gain meaning. Therefore literacy is multimodal, in that is does not just involve print texts, but electronic ones as well.

Children can make use of these media to satisfy their own interests. For example, they may want to know more about a particular TV show, and can use the internet to navigate to the program's website. However, the internet is not the only source of information children make use of. They may be given audio books and tapes to listen to, or interactive games such as those on the Sony Playstation which require children to problem solve, whilst decoding many new symbols that other people may not understand. Classrooms often use computer software such as //Kid Pix// and //Microsoft Office// to encourage students to present their work. Nonetheless, despite the ever-changing technology today, many teachers still feel they lack the skills to teach using these types of media (Hill, 2006).

Hill (2006) writes that there are even some schools in which the students teach the teacher about computers and technological concepts! There are also many schools which do not have access to a large number of computers, meaning that students may become disadvantaged, as they cannot use them as often. However, many schools do have a computer resource room, which often contains computers connected to the internet and loaded with educational software. This is vital because computers offer another way to teach reluctant children. Instead of sitting down with pencils and paper, they do it all on a computer screen, which they may prefer more. **

Common text genres **

Children study a variety of genres in literacy. They all have their own particular audiences and organisational structures, and they also all follow their own grammatical formulae. They are good for assessment in that they provide many different examples of children's work, and help teach students about grammar in general. Three genres are described below.

-Orientation (who, where, what, when) -Events (uses action verbs, is usually chronological) -Comments (uses feeling verbs and evaluative adjectives, doesn't always occur within this genre!) -Reorientation -Orientation (descriptive language) -Events -Complication (action verbs) -Resolution -Title -Parts/Ingredients -Steps/Procedures -Illustrations/Diagrams -description (most simple) -question/answer -compare/contrast, or -problem/solution ||
 * RECOUNT || * retells past experiences
 * has 3 or 4 components:
 * uses past tense
 * uses time-linking words (//first, then, after//) ||
 * NARRATIVE || * used for enjoyment and entertainment
 * describes cultural knowledge and values
 * 4 parts:
 * uses past tense, time-linking words ||
 * PROCEDURE || * gives instructions, rules, notices, warning
 * has a:
 * tenseless
 * subject "you" is usually omitted ||
 * REPORT || * organises information about a group of things
 * structure of:
 * EXPLANATION || * explains how something works or to give reasons for how something came about
 * can be found in scientific texts etc. ||
 * ARGUMENT || * takes a position on an issue, justifies this viewpoint (a goal of persuasion)
 * belong to "Exposition" text type
 * concerned with analysis, interpretation and evaluation of world
 * one-sided ||

When teaching genres, teachers must make sure they establish a purpose for the activity with the children. Examples of the genre should be presented, available in the school and in the wider community. This could be carried out in shared reading sessions. The whole class could also write texts from different genres, in shared writing.

**What about handwriting?** When teaching handwriting, teachers need to be mindful to correct some elements as early as possible, in order to minimise the chance of habits forming. These include:

**Pencil grip** Children should not be having to move their whole arm to form letters, as this takes too much time, and may result in fatigue quite quickly. Instead, the pencil should be held between the thumb and first two fingers, so that the wrist makes movements to create letters. **Paper position** The paper should not be lined up parallel to the table edge, as this requires the student to sit side-on from the table. For the student to sit straight, with both feet on the floor, the paper needs to be slightly slanted, to the left for right-handed people, and to the right for the left-handed.

Different states teach using different cursive fonts. The Victorian cursive handwriting form can be seen below. Teachers can assess a child's writing in order to gain an insight into their thinking and problem-solving skills. Their understanding of book layout, format and spatial awareness is also observed as a child begins to write from left to right, and top to bottom, on their page. Children are also making the connection between spoken, written and read language as they write their own pieces (Hill, 2006).
 * Assessment **

Beginning writers often focus on what the child already knows about letters, words and sentences. A child may just write a list of words or letters, sometimes phonetically, as in this example:
 * Emergent and early writing skills-what is observable here? **

Here, the single letters are worth one point, and the recognisable words 2 points, on a score sheet. Also, if the writing means something, a point is scored. This signifies meaning in one's writing, which is what learning to write is all about!

For more-experienced writers, a different, more-complex score sheet is used. This may occur when writing is arranged in a narrative or about the main ideas in an information text.
 * What if the writing is more complex? **

**Spelling**

People need to spell in order for their writing to be able to be read and understood by others. Children progress through a series of stages when learning to spell, and focus on the print and orthographic features of words in order to determine how a word is spelt. They may use various strategies as recognising common letter sequences (e.g. //com//, but not //srk// can appropriately be used in a word), visual strategies (such as looking at the rime //ight// in the words //night//, //right, sight//), as well as morphological strategies (how a word is structured to represent meaning, such as //nation/////nationwide)// (Hill, 2006).

At first, children experiment with lines and pictures to convey meaning. Temporary spelling may be used until standard spelling is mastered:
 * What stages do children pass through? **

"YUTS A LADE YET FEHEG AD HE GOT FLEPR. Once a lady went fishing and she caught Flipper." (Hill, 2006, p.267)

This example shows some phonetic spelling (based on the sounds, as in "lade": the "e" sound in "lady" sounds like the letter "e", and so the child spelt "lady" as "lade"). This child also heard the first sound in "once" as the first sound in the letter "Y" ("wye", the /w/ sound). Therefore, that is why "once" is phonetically spelled as "yuts".

//Prephonic spelling// In this stage, children experiment with written language by writing separate letters to convey meaning. They may also begin to write with directionality, from left to right.

//Semi-phonetic spelling// Here, children begin to recognise the relationship between sounds and symbols (letters). They may write words using the first and last sounds of the word:

//ADELAIDE// becomes //ALADE//

Children may also insert the alphabetic letter, for its sound (in its name) may be the one they are looking for. They may write //bike// as //bik//, for example, as the final "e" sound is not audible. Some vowel sounds may be omitted, as in //skl// for //school//. Children may also copy words they see around them, on charts, in books and so on.

//Phonetic spelling// Writers begin to spell words using almost a one-for-one sound to letter match here. Therefore, some errors in spelling may occur due to the nature of phonetics and the alphabet:

//WITH// becomes //WIF//

Children also continue memorising words for rote recall. For other words, the child may need to engage in the following activities: As can be seen, this sometimes becomes a lengthy process for children, meaning that they may lose their place and only get the first and last sounds right in the word.
 * saying the word mentally
 * separating the first phoneme from the remainder of the word
 * sorting through their knowledge of the alphabet mentally to find a suitable phonemic match
 * writing down the chosen letter
 * reciting the word written, again in their mind
 * recalling the first phoneme in the word, subtracting it in order to work out the next phoneme
 * carrying out this process for each phoneme within each word

//Transitional spelling// Children continue rote recall, and recognise common letter patterns. They also learn to use the phonics spelling process (see above) less.

//Independent spelling// Here, children use multiple strategies, such as common letter patterns, phonics and sight-learned words. More and more children rely on visual cues to check their word looks right as spelling develops.