Today I received two lovely emails; one from a parent who's son is apart of my ALL writing group, the second was the response from our school principal. What a wonderful way to start the week!
Hi Tineke
Just wanted to commend you on your amazing progress with
C in Writers club. We have just enjoyed hearing his war story Then and Now
and are amazed at how much his writing has improved! The storyline is awesome
and the way the book has been presented is very cool.
We are very proud of him and best of all he is proud of
himself.
Keep up the great work.
A P
My school Principal then responded with this lovely email:
Thanks for your lovely email A
I have watched over the last few weeks how that writers
group is progressing and it is wonderful to watch. Tineke is doing an
outstanding job with them and the children are working their socks off, they
are certainly getting great results. We just need to replicate it across the
whole school now!
It was very exciting today because all of my ALL writing group completed their picture books and bound them together. They were so excited to have completed their masterpieces and were the envy of everyone else in the class who were looking on at what they had created.
Now that all the books are done, we will hold a book launch, and share our books with the whole class.
Today I asked the ALL group if they would like to give some feedback about their learning whilst creating their books. Below is their feedback.
While it is great to hear students share examples from their work; that they all enjoyed making their books; are all eager to share it with others; and that they thought they had all improved in their writing; I felt they struggled to give specific examples of what they were focusing on during writing and how they knew their writing had improved.
Whilst I had given the students examples of questions to think about prior to videoing them, some struggled with their feedback and needed to have their videos re-done; which are now above.
Questions I now have around quality student feedback are:
Why can students tell their peers or me what their next steps are but can't articulate it clearly on camera? Do students find it difficult to give feedback because they are nervous in front of the camera? Or is it the fact that they don't know how to give quality feedback?
Do I need to show them examples of quality student feedback?
Will student feedback improve with time and practice?
Do I guide the students too much/not enough with their feedback?
Are my guiding questions clear/specific enough, or are they not clear/specific enough?
My next question as part of my inquiry is 'How do I improve the quality of the responses my students give without giving them the ideas or answers?'
After reflecting on what was working well with my ALL writing intervention, and then talking to the remainder of the class about what they would like to see changed in their writing, I have made a change to the current writing procedure. Now all students write in purple pen instead of pencil, when they are working with the teacher in writing. Students will continue to write in blue pen during follow up work so that teacher and independent sessions can still be differentiated.
This decision was made because the students said they found it frustrating when they had to rub out their mistakes all the time because they have to have their pencil work all correct. By rubbing out their pencil work, it also didn't show their proof-reading or editing changes which are an important part of the writing process.
The second reason for the change is to celebrate proof-reading and editing changes. At present, there seems to be a real negative connotation about proof-reading and editing because students think it makes their work look messy and highlights all the things that they have done wrong. Instead I have spent time developing a change in their thinking so that students see all the changes as a sign of excellence and that the changes should be celebrated. The improvements to their work also show that they are following the writing process, and are reflecting and improving their own work. By writing only in pen now, it reinforces that the changes made during guided teaching sessions are a sign of improvement and excellence, rather than the negative connotations that rubbing all of their errors out were creating.
Last night I received my assessment from kete 1 of He Papa Tikanga. I was stoked that it was all correct. I also have just submitted kete 2 which was full of inspirational proverbs to help guide us through our decision making. I am going to look to print some out to display around the classroom so my students can learn them and think about them.
Now onto kete 3 which is due on the 25th August. Happy learning!
Yesterday when I was marking an ALL student's independent writing book, I noticed some big changes in his writing since starting the writing intervention.
Below is evidence from his independent book that shows he has made progress in his ability to identify and correct spelling, punctuation and grammar errors. He has also inserted/deleted words to improve the quality of his writing and improve his sentences.
Before starting the intervention:
4 weeks into the intervention:
These last two photos show the student has independently corrected spelling errors, has realised he has incorrectly used a capital letter so has fixed this, and has fixed a sentence so it is grammatically correct, e.g. 'Harrison and I' instead of Harrison and me.
Now that I have completed six weeks of the ALL writing intervention, I thought it was time to reflect on what is working well, what's not going so well, and what changes I am going to make to help improve the writing of my struggling students.
What is working well?
Writing with the students every day for a minimum of 30 minutes.
45 minutes a week release with the writing group to do rich experiences that we can use for writing.
Writing for a purpose. Currently we are finishing off our picture books and are putting these together. Students are having fun creating their texts for a purpose. They love sharing their ideas and writing with the group. As a result, there has been a significant improvement in their motivation towards writing as well as their confidence.
Writing for an audience. Writing emails to parents sharing a 'snapshot' of their writing is great for this. Students get a chance to share their writing with parents during the drafting process. Students also received feedback about their snapshot of writing from their parents.
Planning together. Sharing our ideas orally. This has helped everyone to expand their ideas because they have heard others.
Creating descriptive word charts prior to writing. This is really helpful because students are referring and adding in lots of these words to writing. They love creating word charts using the online tool 'Wordle'.
Having writing tool box full of descriptive words charts, punctuation charts, essential word spelling lists.
Writing solely in pen has improved students confidence. The writing process is also much clearer because students are making changes which are visible, rather than rubbing work out so their evidence and original work is gone. They also don't loose track of what they were writing about.
Students are starting to notice improvements in their writing and are able to verbalise these when asked. Comments are noted in their books in dated speech bubbles in a different colour pen.
Children who were once shy or reluctant, are now willing to share their writing with others.
Children are beginning to give feedback to their peers and say what they liked about their writing.
After sharing examples of writing, students are beginning to independently make changes and improvements to their own writing.
Reluctant writers are now coming into class enthusiastic to carry on with their books that they are writing before school and whenever else they can.
Sticky notes for planning have been fun. Everyone shares their ideas as they pop into their heads then the sticky notes are placed on a chart. Double up ideas or unrelated ideas are easily removed. The sticky notes are easily arranged into sequential order.
Using pictures as prompts to give students ideas of what they could write about. Students refer to the images to check they have described them in their writing; ensuring the picture and text match. A great way to expand the detail and descriptive language used.
What's not working well?
I am struggling to get enough writing mileage while students are working with me in a guided teaching session. Too much time is spent on oral discussions, and not enough on writing. While the oral discussion is really good and important, I need to reduce the amount of time spent on it to ensure as much writing as possible occurs.
Students rely heavily on me during planning to help to pull their ideas out. As they plan and write more pieces, hopefully they will become more independent with their planning and still produce detailed plans.
The first piece of writing has been extremely detailed which is great, but it has taken a lot longer to finish then expected.
Many students are not referring to their learning focus sheets. While some of them can verbalise what they need to work on during their writing, they aren't tracking their progress and getting their learning focus signed off so a new one can be identified and worked on.
What changes will I make to help my struggling writers?
I will have students write shorter pieces so they have a range of work in their publishing folder. It will also allow me to expose them to a greater range of genres or topics. I still want to ensure students are producing quality pieces rather than quantity. This will hopefully enable students to see their improvements by making them more obvious from piece to piece.
When planning, I will still help students get started with their ideas through the use of visual aides, discussions, or experiences we share. I will then let them continue planning for a bit independently, (most likely still on sticky notes) then have them share their ideas with a buddy; or feedback to the group, so students can still help each other. This will allow students to become more independent during the planning stage.
At the start of each session, I am going to try having students tell a buddy what they are going to be working on. The students will then write key words under the date and highlight it. This will hopefully prompt them of what they need to focus on during that writing session. IE: Capital letters, or Spelling etc. Because the group also love incentives, each time a student achieves their learning focus, they will get a token for our class prize box raffle.
How will I know if I am successful?
My ALL students will have a range of quality pieces of writing to share with their whanau.
The students will be able to independently create detailed plans before writing.
The students learning focus sheets will be full and signed off. The students will also be able to self-monitor their progress and identify their next steps.
