Literacy Professional Learning Resource

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VELS Level 1 and 2 – Writing Strategies Scaffolding: Collaborative Learning and Teaching

Three types of collaborative, social learning:

  1. Apprenticeship: a community process of learning
  2. Guided participation: an interpersonal process of learning
  3. Appropriation: a personal process of learning

Modelled writing

Modelled writing involves the teacher writing on a large piece of paper, whiteboard, or large computer monitor, making explicit the considerations and thinking behind a piece of text as well as articulating the process. The writing is the teacher’s, and the students are observers of the strategies demonstrated, the processes used and the product created.

 

Interactive Writing

Interactive writing involves the teacher and small groups of students jointly composing a large print text on a subject of interest to the students and sharing responsibility for the recording at various points in the writing.

Teachers quickly record the words that students know how to write, and engage students in problem solving and recording the words that provide challenges and opportunities for new learning. This eases the transition to independent writing by:

  • making explicit how written language works
  • constructing words using orthographic and phonological knowledge
  • producing a text that can be read again.
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Shared Writing

Shared writing involves the teacher (as scribe) and students collaboratively composing a piece of writing. Meanings, topics, ideas and choices of words are discussed, negotiated and decided by the teacher and students. The approach enables the students to participate in writing experiences, resulting in much richer writing than students would be able to write for themselves. Students can focus on composing and thinking without being encumbered by the complexities of the recording aspects of the writing process.

 

Professional learning

Teaching approaches to support appropriation in classrooms

Provide opportunities for students to apply their new knowledge about language in their speaking/listening and in their writing.

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