Literacy Professional Learning Resource – Teaching Strategies
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Literacy teaching strategies: VELS 1 & 2 | VELS 3 | VELS 4 | VELS 5 & 6
VELS level 4 – Independent writing
Independent writing supports students to deepen their learning and communicate with others.
Learning journals
The intention of a learning journal is to support students to learn and to understand and transfer their learning in other contexts.
The features of learning journals can be used as a basis for focused discussion with students:
- before writing in the journal
- as a check when writing in their journal
- for reflecting on what they have written
- to inform future learning.
Features of learning journals
Learning journals help students reflect on how they learn best. Learning journals also help students reflect on their knowledge, skills and behaviours for all domains particularly the Personal Learning domain. Journals are used to:
- improve writing by helping students to practise and refine writing knowledge, skills and behaviours accumulated over time
- define personal learning goals as students can reflect and plan for future learning and progress
- record experiences so students can reflect on experiences to develop critical thinking, a questioning attitude, and creative and emotive responses
- provide a representation of understanding for students to connect the experience to the learning
The paper-based journal
Paper-based journals are flexible in that they allow for both student-driven and teacher-assisted writing. Students may select what to incorporate and how they will do this, or journals can be structured by the teacher for a particular learning and teaching purpose or assessment (Assessment as learning)
The style of written journals can also differ. While learning journals are mostly written and provide opportunities to practise writing, they can also be strengthened with the use of tables, diagrams, concept maps, etc .
The electronic learning journal
Web logs, or blogs, in education can be used as reflective learning journals in a range of learning contexts. Information can be uploaded to the journal using forms and mobile devices. This electronic version is different to paper-based journals in that the student journal is immediately accessible and public.
Paper-based journals are typically viewed by other students or the teacher only at the end of the learning period. A learning journal is an analytical record of a student’s learning. This can be applied to all areas of student learning.
Note: Module 6: Digital portfolios (part of the Assessment Professional Learning Modules) is available during term 2, 2007 on the Assessment page of the Student Learning site. See: Prep to Year 10 Assessment
Writing for an audience
As students are writing more complex and extended texts, they require support during independent writing time. Support students to use the following strategies for their independent writing.
Writing process
Make the writing process explicit to support students as they write independently. Students should be able to articulate what they hope to achieve during their independent writing time. The process involves:
- planning
- organising
- composing
- revising
- editing and publishing
Purpose of the writing
Encourage students to ask themselves before they begin writing, ‘What is the purpose of this piece of writing?’
- Is it for me to learn more about a particular topic?
- Is it to inform the rest of the class of what I have learnt?
- Is it to recount a recent holiday?
- Is it to argue a point of view?
- Is it to entertain my family?
As the purpose is explored ask students to explicitly identify the intended audience.
Timing
Provide structure for students to manage their time when writing.
- as students are planning at the beginning of a piece of writing, ask them to include a timeline for completion of the task
- provide five minutes at the end of the writing time to allow students to write down what they have achieved in this writing time and what they plan to do in the next writing session.
A balance of text types
- Use reading of the selected text types to model effective writing.
- Before writing ask students to identify what they know about the topic and what else they need to know and to use this to identify the most appropriate text type.
- Ask students to document the different types of writing they do over a period of time so that they can make sure that they are creating opportunities to have practice in writing using a range of texts. Provide students with a list of text types to consider.