English Developmental Continuum P–10 – Writing
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Writing Strategy Scaffolding learning from 3.25
Indicators of Progress
- Students describe their modified writing plan, that is, the strategies they will use to complete the task.
- Students describe their purpose for writing, the questions they intend to answer in their writing, particularly for the new text types learnt here, and how they indicate the purpose in the text they write.
- Students use strategies to generate relevant ideas, for example, how to contextualise a topic in a fantasy or adventure, a report or an argument and organise and plan the resources they will use to complete the writing; these include libraries and databases.
- Students sequence and organise the main ideas and the supporting ideas for two simultaneous sets of events, for example, by allocating one paragraph to each of the simultaneous sequences.
- Students integrate the ideas in two or three sentences into a single sentence, identify the ‘paragraph idea’ in a set of sentences and summarise a sequence of sentences.
- Students prepare a first draft by mapping the ideas developed during planning into sentences and paragraphs, combine and sequence written and visual information, and use a range of sentence lengths and types.
- Students revise their draft by adding or changing appropriate language and/or graphics to enhance text and style.
- Students identify and write the key ideas in a text from which they need to learn as they handle the information, for example, as they watch a short video or read a simple text with a few key ideas.
- Students use various editing strategies such as a proofreading checklist, a dictionary, and computer-based materials, to monitor their use of spelling, punctuation, grammar, and capitalisation.
Teaching Strategies
The learning and teaching approach for writing is illustrated for students responding within the context of Scary Stories.
Organising phase
Awareness of writing strategies: the setting
Students read two or three short narratives, one of which has a clear setting and the other two do not. They read each and identify that the where and when of the two texts is missing. The teacher explains that this means you can’t tell where the thrilling event happened. Need to discuss what makes a story scary – suspense; the reader has to identify and empathise with the main characters, etc. Need to have read and discussed scary stories prior to this level of detail.
Students look at some sequences of pictures, for example, short comic strips that may show scary events and again decide the setting for each.
They read three other short scary stories and decide the setting for each. They identify the questions that the setting answers.
Students develop their own strategic plans
To plan how they will write their scary story, students need to decide or select the setting for their story. They can list possible settings and decide theirs:
Plan for writing a narrative about a scary story
WHEN
early in childs life
in the future
on holiday
late at night
at a party
WHERE
in the desert
haunted house
walk through bush, wake up and hear a noise
asleep in house, wake up and hear a sound
in a park after dark
Students learn to talk about the need for a clear setting when writing narratives and the questions it answers:
- A story needs to say where and when it happens; this is called its setting.
- I will write about the setting early in the story.
- I write about the setting by saying where and when it happens.
Awareness of writing strategies: developing the character
Students re-read the 2 or 3 short narratives. They look at how the main character is described and how the writer tells them more about the character as each story unfolds. They note how the main characters are actually portrayed, for example, in a scary situation where they are
- powerless, weak in the situation
- can’t control what is happening, can’t do anything
- can’t escape from the situation
- can’t predict what will happen next, unexpected things happen, can’t make sense of what is happening.
They look at some sequences of pictures, for example, in short comic strips they identify the questions that the setting answers. For example, Who is the person who is frightened? How are they shown in this situation?
The learning and teaching approach for writing is illustrated for students responding within the context of Scary Stories.
Revising phase
Describing how to revise their draft
Students describe how they will edit their first draft of A Scary Story , for example:
- I will reread my writing aloud to myself or someone else to revise or clarify ideas.
- I will edit for the use of punctuation and spelling errors.
- I will listen to how each sentence sounds and whether it makes sense and whether I have used words correctly