What Does the Curriculum Ask For?
The Ontario Curriculum for Language grades 4-8 share similar overall expectations for the writing strand, which include:
- Generate, gather, and organize ideas
- Draft and revise
- Use editing, proofreading, and publishing skills and strategies, and knowledge of language conventions
- Reflect and identify strengths as writers, and areas in need of improvement
The expectation is that students will be able to comprehend and create pieces of writing that consider their audience, an intended purpose, all the while using writing components that enhance the information they are delivering.
Utilizing Assessment For Learning
There is no doubt that there will be fluctuation in every classroom in regards to the students' writing skills. As educators, we must assess where our classroom is, what they need to improve on, where they need to go next, and how best we can get there. Different methods of assessment for learning with the writing strand can include:
- Strategic questions - deliberate questions asked by the teacher to gain certain information
- Examples: What is an audience? What is a purpose? What are different forms of writing? What makes effective writing?
- Think, pair, share - have students work with a partner to gather information, write it down, and present when done
- Self-assessment - have students reflect on their own skills, where they think they are strong and what they think needs improvement
All of these ideas will incorporate a form of writing that can be assessed by the teacher. It will allow insight into the potential of the students to meet curriculum expectations and give teachers a sense of what direction they need to take their class in.
Making Our Writing Better
Assessment will give us background information and help guide us in the teaching of the writing strand. Once we have direction, we can begin to implement different strategies that can help make our students effective writers. We live in a digital world, and most students in the Junior/Intermediate age group will be familiar with online content and websites (social media, apps). This increases the ways we can strengthen the writing skills of our students and it presents us with endless opportunities to make teaching the curriculum more engaging to the students of this generation.
In a blog post on Langwitches, the author suggests different ways we can enhance writing skills while taking the digital world into extreme consideration. Silvia Tolisano says:
"Digital writing allows a writer to re-think writing and reading experiences, choose from multiple possibilities of communicating and opportunities to to amplify their thoughts, ideas, connections, references, train of thought, and their audience."
Teaching students the fundamentals of writing through pen and paper might be too trivial or "boring" for a generation that is easily stimulated by technology. Instead of reverting to traditional methods of writing, incorporating the interest most students have for the online universe can potentially produce the best platform to develop themselves as writers. Digital writing embraces most overall and specific expectations of the curriculum for language, such as writing for a purpose, considering the audience, and using different styles and forms to create the most effective writing. Using a digital platform like a blog, or social media website like Twitter, will force students to manipulate their writing in such a way that delivers their message and satisfies the reader.
Susan Barber presents some interesting ideas on Edutopia that can support Tolisano's unconventional approach to teaching writing. Barber asks, "How can teachers be sure that they're teaching students how to write and not simply editing writing assignments?" She gives these suggestions:
- Ongoing feedback
- Freedom to experiment
- Self-editing skills
- Strengthening content and ideas
- Student reflection
These suggestions support the idea that writing is an ongoing process that requires an open mind and constant growth. Good writing is dependent on the audience, the purpose, and the way that it is delivered. Allowing students to work online with the various platforms and apps gives them the freedom to explore successful writing on a broader scale and it encourages them to work inside and outside of their comfort zones. They will be exposed to many forms of writing (blog posts, tweets, news articles) and gain knowledge that they can later use in their own practices.
Choice is Important
There is a stigma that surrounds writing and English classes. Most students are not thrilled with the prospect of writing and tend to think the focus is primarily on the grammar and semantics of writing versus the content. A blog post on Edutopia, by Rebecca Alber, suggests that choice is a crucial part to student success. She says:
"Just because we formally measure a writing assignment with a rubric or criteria chart, it doesn’t mean that the assignment should not include choice."
Our end goal is for our students to meet the curriculum expectations, but the way we get them there should involve their input. I mentioned assessment as a pivotal part of teaching the strand, and that assessment should be utilized to create the most effective approach to teaching the students. Alber offers a great strategy:
"While designing those more formal writing tasks, consider using a planning strategy called GRASPS (Goal, Role, Audience, Structure, Product, Standards, and Criteria). You decide on the goal and the standards and criteria, and let the student choose the role, audience, structure, and product."
This strategy offers students a chance to use their strengths. It does not prey on their weaknesses or fears of writing, it does not create more pressure than necessary, and it does not exclude the diverse learning needs of different students. This has the potential to provide an inclusive learning environment by allowing students to meet curriculum expectations in ways that capitalize on their strengths and interests.
Writing is an Art, Not a Punishment
Choice can mean everything.
Providing students with an array of different writing platforms (online blogs, social media, poems, spoken word pieces, reports) will give them the freedom to explore the art of writing and develop an appreciation for it while simultaneously learning about themselves as writers. Writing allows us to express ourselves, to deliver a message, to make a statement. It is a way that we can communicate our thoughts, passions, and dreams to a wide range of people. Writing is limitless.
We must embrace the differences in our students' skills, harness their strengths, and channel all of it into developing a healthy relationship between students and writing.
Sources
Alber, Rebecca. “New Teachers: Inspire Your Students to Write, Write, Write.” Edutopia, 2 Nov. 2016, www.edutopia.org/blog/new-teachers-inspiring-your-students-write-write-write-rebecca-alber.
Barber, Susan. “Teaching Writing or Editing Writing?” Edutopia, 19 Feb. 2016, www.edutopia.org/blog/teaching-writing-or-editing-writing-susan-barber.
“5 Opportunities to Amplify Your Writing | Silvia Tolisano- Langwitches Blog.” Silvia Tolisano Langwitches Blog, langwitches.org/blog/2016/07/07/5-opportunities-to-amplify-your-writing/.
No comments:
Post a Comment