English Developmental Continuum P–10 – Writing
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Writing Strategy Scaffolding learning from 1.50
Indicators of Progress
- Students describe some of the differences between speaking and writing and experiment with new text types.
- Students combine their writing with supportive drawings or computer graphics.
- Students plan what they will write about by using discussion or drawing to identify what they want to write prior to writing, say, ‘what they want to tell’ the reader. During planning they organise the ideas prior to their first draft, for example, by describing how they will clearly define a topic; and add detail to a topic.
- Students use explicit text organisational strategies to sequence the ideas in the writing with a clear beginning, body or middle, and end.
- Students understand that paragraphs separate key ideas. While aware of these text organisational features, they may not use them correctly.
- Students use sentence writing strategies in which they write in complete sentences, vary the length of sentence and experiment with combining or expanding sentences.
- Students use word- and vocabulary-selection strategies more effectively. They try out unfamiliar words, select words by taking account of the likely readers and try to avoid words that lack voice such as mundane or trite words and overuse of words or phrases such as and or then.
- Students modify their proofreading and editing to include rereading what they have written to check for meaning, sentence form and their use of vocabulary. They reread their writing to themselves or to others to revise or clarify ideas, and are assisted to modify their writing if necessary and edit for use of punctuation and for spelling errors.
- Students use explicit publishing strategies for deciding how to present their edited piece of writing.
- Students articulate some of the strategies (that is, the actions) they used while writing.
- Students learn strategies for copying sentences one or a few at a time; they learn to vocalise each sentence before beginning to write and rehearse it.
Teaching Strategies
The learning and teaching approach for writing is illustrated for students responding within the context of Mini-beasts.
Organising phase
Develop a writing plan
To plan what they will write about their favourite minibeast, students:
- describe what they will do, and the actions they will take
- describe what they want to tell people who read their texts in line with their purpose
- discuss or draw what they want to say in their writing.
Students say some of the actions they will use to:
- organize their ideas before their first draft
- decide how they will write their ideas in a sentence, for example, I will say the idea in a sentence before I begin to write it.
Students collate a list of “Things I can do to help me write” . This includes the types of writing and thinking strategies they can use.
Making decisions about the writing text type
Students respond to the questions:
- What form should my writing take?
- What will my finished text look like?
Students share ideas and consider strategies that they may be able to adopt/modify in their personal writing. They can select the format that they will use and how they will prepare their knowledge for it. They select from writing ideas in stories, descriptions, letters, cards, messages, summaries, reports, projects, essays, signs, posters.
The learning and teaching approach for writing is illustrated for students responding within the context of Mini-beasts.
Composing phase
Scaffolding understanding about the structure of a text type
Students read earlier writing samples of other students about minibeasts and note how they ‘talk about’ the chosen animal.
- The heading says what the minibeast is.
- The first sentence introduces us to the minibeast. It tells us its name.
- Some sentences tell us what it looks like.
- Some sentences tell us where it lives.
- Some sentences tell us what it eats and drinks.
- Some sentences tell us how it moves.
- Some sentences tell us why it is a good minibeast.
They discuss how reading these can help them put their ideas into writing about their minibeast.
Reviewing writing strategies
Students discuss the writing strategies they used and the values and purpose of each. They say some of the actions they used while writing and can add the writing strategies to their list ofThings I do when I am writing.
| Things I do when I am writing: |
| making a picture of the topic in my mind |
| describing the picture to myself |
| working out some key ideas |
The learning and teaching approach for writing is illustrated for students responding within the context of Mini-beasts.
Revising phase
Working towards self talk for proofreading
Students describe how they will proof read their first draft of About Slaters, as in the following examples.
- I will reread my writing aloud to myself or someone else to revise or clarify ideas.
- I will listen to how each sentence sounds and whether it makes sense and if I have used words correctly.
- I will edit for punctuation and spelling errors .
Learning self-talk to guide editing
Students ask themselves the following types of questions to guide their editing activity:
- Have I used any words that I am not sure of?
- Does each sentence have one idea? Do the sentences sound right? Could I say this idea another way? Does it make sense?
- Have I used pictures etc. well?
- What will I call the piece of writing?
The learning and teaching approach for writing is illustrated for students responding within the context of Mini-beasts.
Learning consolidation phase
Articulating specific text features for reports
Students review what they have learnt about how to write a report about an animal they have studied. They identify:
- what a report should say
- what is a useful plan for a report.
Students read and analyse some written reports that are judged to be successful. They can note that a report about a minibeast:
- says which minibeast is the topic
- describes what the minibeast looks like
- describes where it lives
- describes what it eats.
Being explicit about new learning
Students say what they will remember about writing a report that describes an animal. They can write a memory card that reminds them of the questions they could ask.