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 5 & 6 – Writing strategies for all VELS domains

Following are some writing strategies that can be adapted to a single VELS domain or for programs that have multiple domains to support students in meeting the literacy demands of their learning in:

• Physical, Personal and Social Learning: Health and Physical Education, Interpersonal Development, Personal Learning, Civics and Citizenship.
• Discipline-Based Learning: The Arts, Economics, Geography, History, Mathematics, Science
• Interdisciplinary Learning: Communication, Design, Creativity and Technology, Information and Communication Technology, Thinking.

The examples provide a structure for supporting students to use writing to learn and to communicate. Students write for a range of purposes, using a variety of forms and genres in a range of text types in both print and electronic form.

• Structured process for writing
• Types of texts
• Purposes for writing
• Conventions of writing

Structured process for writing

Use the structured process for writing to support student learning. Discuss and describe each step in the process as it applies to the VELS domains.

Planning

• identify the purpose for the writing, the intended audience and the questions they intend their writing to answer or to raise
• select the most appropriate type of text
• plan how they will organise, prioritise and sequence the main and supporting ideas
• idea generation and collation strategies such as researching, mapping, surveys and interviews
• select a format for publishing, for example, multimedia formats, essay, research presentation appropriate for the audience and purpose.

Organising

• idea organisation strategies such as networking the main ideas first, followed by the subordinate ideas, identifying the questions answered by the main ideas (for example, using the who, what, when, where, why framework)
• focusing or expanding a topic prior to drafting for an interpretative essay (for example, by aligning the questions asked by a topic with the questions answered by the ideas).

Composing

• use a variety of sentence structures, literary devices such as simile, metaphor and other figurative techniques selectively to enhance their clarity of writing, and to increase the rhythm, tone, and fluency of their writing
• use the ideas and perspectives generated to write a first draft
• elaborate initial ideas, identify subordinate ideas
• focus on developing ideas and details and organising them
• link main and supporting ideas within and between paragraphs by using a range of connectives to communicate a sense of coherence.

Revising

Revising requires students to:

• reread what they have written for sense
• confer with others to modify the text
• adapt using recommendations
• modify the language and/or accompanying non-text information to enhance text and style
• use editing and redrafting to improve clarity, coherence, creativity and consistency of style in communicating the intended message
• proofread for spelling, punctuation and grammar using multiple resources to edit the text for example, dictionaries, computer-based facilities, peer feedback and writing guides
• cite sources - references, footnotes, endnotes
• reflect upon and evaluate how well the intention and viewpoint has been stated to the reader.

Proofreading and publishing

• produce a legible piece of writing using the most appropriate technologies
• evaluate reader response to the text.

Types of texts

Support students to write different text types by explicitly teaching them to recognise and include the features of the text type.

When writing extended narratives, imaginative scripts and narrative scripts students:

• organise ideas in terms of a main plot and sub-plots
• use language (vocabulary, sentence forms, cohesion)
• use character development
• maintain a consistency of viewpoint
• show appropriate development of a resolution
• moderate cohesion by using appropriate terms to link ideas
• show an awareness of the need for chronology and cultural reference.

When writing texts that explore a complex current issue from different perspectives or argue for a particular point of view, students:

• organise ideas in a way that clearly supports the position
• offer alternative opinions on the issue
• are aware of ways to correct the use of stereotypes in writing
• use language effectively to lead and persuade (for example, emotive words, rhetorical questions, repetition of key ideas, the passive voice, and pronouns that suggest inclusion)
• link ideas either in a time sequence using conjunctions such as first or second or by comparing and contrasting ideas using terms such as however or on the other hand
• support their position with objective opinions, logical detail and/or comment and observations
• prioritise and organise their opinions, data and reasons in a logical way, for example, they state their position, provide evidence and restate their position
• offer possibilities and options based both on their opinions and on objective data.

When writing texts that communicate their thoughts, feelings and opinions, students:

• think creatively and in terms of open-ended possibilities
• show clearly how their creative thinking derives from an objective, logical base.

When writing expository, informative and factual texts that are intended to explain and to describe phenomena, students:

• use precise and often technical vocabulary
• are objective and focused on the topic
• effectively use a range of explanatory language features such as appropriate use of verbs, verb tense and sentence forms such as the passive voice
• support the explanations with reasons and data that are mostly objective
• use language connectives effectively to link ideas, for example, 'since', 'because'.

Purposes for writing

Support students to understand the purposes of writing by explicitly teaching them to:

• develop their theme in coherent ways around their intended purpose and have an explicit, clearly stated viewpoint. The subordinate ideas and details such as facts, dialogue, logical argument and quotations are organised in a logical sequence around the main theme. For appropriate types of text, the theme or issue is introduced in an introduction, differentiated and elaborated through the range of subordinate ideas in the body, and drawn together in a conclusion. The students describe how they organise the ideas in each section.
• use language that is relevant to the topic, audience, and purpose, including specialised vocabulary, a range of resources and possible figurative language relevant to the topic.

Conventions of writing

Support students to improve their writing by explicitly teaching them to recognise and use:

• compound and complex sentences
• appropriate grammatical conventions including tense, subject-verb agreement and noun-pronoun agreement
• a sophisticated rhythm and flow of language where appropriate
• a consistent 'stance' for example, the use of first person
• punctuation conventions - understanding the use of capitals, punctuating the ends of sentences and within sentences, using commas after introductory phrases, in compound sentences, or in a series, using apostrophes in contractions and singular possessives
• paragraph conventions- paragraphs to segment a text into meaningful sections, topic sentences, connecting sentences to link paragraphs, bullets and numbering
• graphics, photographs and artwork more strategically to support the written message
• conventions for citing sources - referring to the sources of data included in the content of the text, acknowledging sources when paraphrasing or quoting directly from sources, including an alphabetical bibliography and in-text documentation that follow assigned format rules.

Reference

English Developmental Continuum P-10 (Victorian Department of Education, 2006)