More on Teaching Writing...

What I think makes a difference

Reflecting on and recording my thoughts about teaching writing has been interesting and worthwhile. 

Also, recently the Tai Tokerau Literacy Association held their annual 'mystery bus tour' which visited my classroom. I was able (with permission from my students)  to share some of their writing and the process involved. (See my previous posts) To chat with other teachers and share this inquiry was a very positive and affirming exercise and I received a lot of positive feedback. Unfortunately I failed to take photos on the night, but this is how my classroom looked, if you can imagine students' writing books and 'published' works out on their desks:

Also on display were a number of previous co-constructed Success Criteria charts. I like to write these on chart paper so that they can be referred to throughout the process. I've been suprised to note that when these are later displayed around the room, students sometimes take the initiative to refer to them for their own free-choice writing or in their conference group discussions about writing. The charts look like this:

Not exactly neat nor even well presented, but it is a co-constructed, student voiced criteria and a working document which is constantly referred to throughout the writing process. 

Incidentally, this one is for a piece of narrative writing about a magic ring. This topic relates to our previous shared book literature study on 'The Hobbit' by JRR Tolkien. I find that narratives work best when students are given a plot framework which stops them from 'getting lost' and writing without the end in mind. The plot outline for this piece looked like this:

I think that you can tell I'm not big on handwriting and making things look pretty. That is not my priority.

Maybe because they know "The Hobbit' really well, the students seemed very motivated to write this narrative. Here is a finished piece, photo taken prior to my marking. I think the child's self assessment demonstrates how he has focussed on the success criteria.

 The students really do seem to enjoy working this way to improve their writing.  The results have been good. (More on this later) These are the points which I think have made a difference:

• Having a co-constructed success criteria which is available and referred to throughout the process.
• Student working in mixed ability conference groups, using the success criteria to assist each other to 'grow' their work.
• Providing individualised written feed forward.
• Asking students to highlight their teacher written feed forward and record it as a future goal.
• Having students self -assess  each published piece according to the success criteria before teacher marking.
• Generally requiring students to be more reflective about their own writing.

The next step? I think as the teaching year draws to a close, before this class moves on to that big world we call High School, I will ask them to complete a short survey. Perhaps just 3 questions to gauge their own thoughts about their writing progress. I'll also take a closer look at their progress over the year and collate some data.

I'll let you know how I get on and I'll share my final thoughts for the year about my inquiry into the teaching of writing sometime soon. 

Thanks for taking the time to read my blog.

Why do I bother marking student writing when they barely even look at my comments?

Making Written Feed Forward Work.

Students need good feedback and feedforward in order to improve their writing. But are our written comments on students' writing actually a meaningful part of the teaching and learning process?  How can we ensure that students take our written comments on board to further their skills?

Too often I have spent a considerable amount of my precious time assessing student writing only to have them glance at their score/grade and then disregard the most valuable bit, my personalised 'feed-forward' comments. This frustrated me, for I felt that my written comments, if given due consideration by the learner should be almost as valuable as an individual teacher conference.

This year I really wanted to address this issue and ensure that all learners would acknowledge my feed forward and actually apply it to improve their writing skills.

So, here's what I've tried; I'll explain from the beginning of the process. Most writing has a success criteria (perhaps 3-4 main points / goals.)  The students think they develop this, the best-practice teaching textbook might call it 'co-construction', but let's face it, it's actually me who chooses the success criteria. I just allow the learners to believe that they have selected the key learning points. It makes them happy. I usually write the success criteria up on chart paper and refer to it throughout the process. Even after that I hang it on the classroom wall.

I make up a student / teacher assessment sheet based on the agreed success criteria. I insist that students assess their own writing before handing it in for teacher assessment. Sometimes this might be a peer assisted activity. Students MUST add a comment about their writing. Always. A typical assessment sheet might look like this:

Marking. This is the time consuming bit for me, but I figure that if I can be sure that my students will consider and learn from my written comments then the time spent marking is actually valuable, individualised, differentiated teaching time. I always try to include positive feedback and a 'next - steps' type feed forward comment. An interesting development that I have discovered is, that as the students became accustomed to this style of assessment they began writing their own really good feed - forward comment. It gives me a  'teacher - type - buzz' when I find myself writing, "I agree with your comment, you know what your next steps are to improve your poetic (or whatever) writing.  Continue to focus on......

The next step, I think, is the most important bit, when students receive some written comments from me I always use some class time to insist that they read and consider it. They use a highlighter and I ask them to highlight the 'next-steps' comment. At this point their finished writing and assessment might look a bit like this:

Finally,  (not really, for the process will surely never end!) when we begin our NEXT piece of writing (similar genre) I will have the students start by reflecting on their assessment and recording a personal goal based on their highlighted text from my written comment. This goal will be re-visited throughout the next writing lessons.

In this way I think I have ensured that my teacher written feed-forward comments contribute as a valuable part of the learning process. 

I'd be interested in reading your ideas or comments about this.