Trends in teaching writing

 

The more I venture through the course, the more I am able to gain an appreciation for the many strategies and trends in writing. At this point, it seems as though I need to compile all the tips and tricks into a book and keep it on my person when I return to the classroom. While it is typical practice for teachers to encourage students to write about a subject in order to gauge how well they comprehend it, writing also helps students remember content, link ideas, and synthesize information in clever ways. Teachers should develop the practice of encouraging children to write creatively, as we have often discussed. Just a platform for them to write without a purpose or concern about a grade.

The new trends in writing aim to steer away from the past or ‘olden day’ ways of getting a writing piece completed. The first trend, and in my opinion the most important, is granting students the appropriate length of time needed for writing. The ideal amount of time is 45-60 minutes daily, which came across as unrealistic with the current timetable structure known at the primary level. At previous schools that I have taught, the subject of Language Arts was always split up. There were even days when the break period separated the components, for example, Grammar and Mechanics— Break Time — Letter Writing. It was only at teacher training that I realized the concept of ‘block’ teaching and also the benefits. A few of my colleagues suggested scheduling journal/writing time where students will right freely without the added pressure of being graded in the end. This can take place during the mornings or even in the afternoons and it would encourage the development of their ideas. I personally never had this opportunity when I attended primary school (back in the day lol) but I do however see the benefits it can reap where the students writing skills are concerned. To this day, I find myself struggling to write freely. A topic could be provided and I would be able to start writing, but the development of the piece is where the problem begins. Going forward, I will encourage my students in impromptu writing while also applying the same principles in my personal writing.

A second trend is providing students with regular responses to their writing; whether it be from the teacher, their peers, or maybe even a family member. Based on the nature of the piece, the author (in this case, the student) needs to be aware of the audience they are targeting. Through the responses, the reader will be able to provide some form of guidance or advice where the construction or assembly of the piece is concerned. In the Writers Workshop, this can be done during conferencing.

    Students should be given the opportunity to display their writing pieces. In this third trend, students should think of themselves as authors having their pieces displayed on bulletin boards, storyboards, short story books, newsletters, or even a physical blog. Seeing the idea of a newsletter brought back a childhood memory of when I used to read Archie Comics. The high school the students attended (Riverdale) had a newspaper, with Betty and Jughead as the composers.

This was the first time I became aware that school newspapers even existed and I can see the advantages of utilizing this outlet to display students' work.

I may consider incorporating this idea in my classroom, but on a weekly to bi-weekly basis (to save on printing). This is another way teachers can display models of good writing that are entertaining for the students.

    This next trend ties in with our repeated suggestions of allowing the students to choose their own topic. This way, they are able to write about things they know or are familiar with or situations they may encounter in their daily lives. Once students begin sharing their experiences, their classmates can benefit and build on their background acknowledge. This will enable them to use what they know and what they have learned to write fiction, informative or persuasive pieces, and even poetry.

This trend is one that I definitely need to practice with my students. The teacher thinking aloud while writing allows students to visualize the thought process behind writing. This can encourage them to do the same when they are free writing as a way to effectively jot down ideas while they are writing. This is preferred instead of giving the students the final/ end piece.

    Student writing portfolios are another trend that I am now becoming aware of since starting teacher training. The students need to maintain collections of their work as a way to highlight their writing history and progress. The teacher can then analyze their pieces sequentially and even develop a report on the students' improvement (or decline), and provide assistance where needed for future pieces.

Utilizing the gradual release of responsibility model, students will continue to benefit under the guidance of teachers who explicitly teach writing. This entails the students gathering and organizing their ideas before writing while incorporating strategies that will help them to plan, revise, and edit their pieces. The Fisher and Frey model place emphasis on an I do – we do – you do strategy which provides appropriate instructions for students while guiding them towards working independently.

In the Writers Workshop, this can also take the structure of -
I do (the teacher): focus lesson

We do: guided instruction
You do it together: collaborative learning
You do it alone: independent task

I am indeed looking forward to reading your take on everything we learned in the session. Thus far, each session has been filled with a plethora of information that we can utilize to create better writers in our classrooms.

While observing the demonstrations of the different writing strategies, there was one that stood out to me. Hopefully, I  don't come across as biased, but it was Self Regulation and Metacognitive Reflection, executed by Ms. Quinn (lol). Teaching students how to take charge of the quality and output of their writing or content-area learning via observation, reflection, and performance evaluation has a beneficial impact on student achievement. One strategy to get students to think more critically about their reading and writing is to use graphs or other visual displays to show performance over time. Students can build self-directed learning habits and greater independence in addition to setting goals when they are explicitly taught how to regulate their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors related to writing. To showcase this, a very large cat was used (lol). I decided to attempt to create a graphic organizer that can also be used for the same purpose.