How students view their writing now they are over half way through the intervention; And where to from here?

At our last ALL meeting, the question was asked 'What am I transferring from my teaching of ALL to the rest of the class?'  After thinking about this question I realised that I hadn't really changed my teaching practice for the rest of the class at all.  When asking myself why this was the case, I realised it was because of the way we currently plan at school.  At present, we plan around genre with the purpose of completing a writing sample for assessment.  This locks us into teaching genre, rather than student interest or need. 
Because of the need to complete a writing sample and have it moderated by the middle of term, I felt my teaching of writing was based on quantity, rather than quality.  This is because students need as much practise as possible on writing a particular genre in order to be able to write it independently for their assessment.

Now that my team are starting to plan for term 3, I thought it was timely to ask my ALL students to self-reflect on their writing now they have been a part of the intervention group for a term.  I am hoping to take their comments to the team when we meet next week for planning so that I have student voice and evidence, with the hope to change the way we teach writing for the whole class in term 3.

It was interesting students commented on both writing improvements, but also attitude improvements towards writing.

Below are students comments about ALL writing:

"I enjoy writing a lot more because I get to write about cool things and different things.  Before I joined ALL I didn't like writing because we had to write boring stuff so we could do our writing sample.  I've been using full-stops and capital letters correctly.  I am editing and making changes a lot more.  All has helped my writing because I'm using more descriptive words, my hand writings improved, and I think writing is fun now" By W, 1-7-15
 
"I like how I get to publish everything so I don't have to look at my book, I can share my publishing folder and show off my best work" By L, 1-7-15

"I am adding a lot more description so my story is more interesting.  I am using a lot of different punctuation and I know what a semi-colon is" By L, 26.6.15

"I am using more punctuation.  I am editing more and proof-reading.  I am using a lot more descriptive words so my writing sounds better" By J, 25-6-15
 
"ALL has helped because I was struggling and I didn't like writing.  I was always distracted.  I really like writing now because we have fun in ALL and get to do activities to help our writing" By J, 22-5-15
 
"I'm using rhetorical questions for description.  I now know what a semi colon is and use it to join two sentences.  My spelling has improved.  My writing now flows and is in order" By C, 25-6-15
 
"I like writing more because I like the ideas I'm using.  I am using full stops in the right places. I am trying to use different sentence starters.  I am doing a lot more editing.  I am making my sentences longer because I'm putting more detail and descriptive words in" By B, 25-6-15
 
"I am crossing out words and making them better words.  I enjoy ALL because I get to write different stories because before I didn't get to write stories that I could always share my ideas with.  I get a lot more say in what I write about now because I always get to share my ideas when writing.  I feel good about writing now because I use more descriptive words and can use paragraphs" By B, 1-7-15
 
"I like ALL better because I get to write a lot of different things.  I like writing now because it's easier because I get more help with spelling and ideas.  My writing has improved because I use more descriptive language.  I'm using full stops at the end of sentences, and capital letters at the start of sentences.  I write with more detail.  I'm using paragraphs to improve my writing and organise my ideas" By M, 1-7-15
 
"I like writing now and want to write.  I enjoy writing now because it's easier to write because we all share our ideas" By M, 22-5-15
 
"I'm using more similes and onomatopoeia to make my writing more interesting.  I'm using capital letters and full stops properly.  I'm using more punctuation and speech.  I'm putting more information in my plans" By J, 25-6-15

Reflecting on students feedback, it's great to see they are starting to articulate specifically how their writing has improved.  At the start of ALL, the feedback included things like, 'I am using more punctuation', but now most students are saying what punctuation is being used and how they are using it.

What next?

• Make changes to the way we plan so that the things that are working well in ALL is transferred into writing for the whole class.  I would like to do this by:

1. Plan for the needs and interests of the students, rather than planning for the purpose of a writing sample.
2. Give writing a purpose for the students. 
3. Students to write for an audience.
4. Give students plenty of opportunity to publish their writing so they can see it all complete, neat, and tidy.  It also helps to lift the quality of writing because students know it is going to be read or put on display.
5. Quality vs quantity when writing.  1-2 pieces of excellent, high quality writing is more empowering and encouraging for student, as opposed to 5-6 poor-average pieces which show little improvement.  Quality pieces gives students good models of writing to refer to, and also makes them want to share it.
6. Give students more choice in the context of their writing and use their ideas. 

• Give students rich learning experiences to motivate them with their writing.  This also enables students to use more description in their writing.

• Consider whether doing a writing sample is necessary every term, especially now we are doing PACT judgements for writing.  Would an E-asttle sample be more relevant and appropriate?  E-asttle would mean one writing test completed in one writing session, as opposed to 1-2 weeks spent on students writing independently to complete a writing sample on a specific genre that has been taught.  (Time spent on assessment means students miss out on guided teaching time).

• Mixed ability writing groups.  Students then can share their ideas, opinions and perspectives.  This could enable struggling students to have higher ability writers as role models so they get advice on how to improve their writing, rather then the ideas and advice always coming from the teacher.