Making the most of opportunities to strengthen learners’ writing

Paora Howe

Overview of webinar

• Key ideas:– Learners need to see themselves as writers &

understand what motivates them to write and work on their writing

– Practice is critical, so it’s important that learners find things to write about and get started

– Learners need to be deliberately taught to transfer their writing skills from one context to another

Seeing themselves as writers

• Emails, texts, notes – what else will make them see themselves as writers?

• Compare lists• What in common? What different?• Proud of what?• What is ‘good writing’ to you?• Appreciative enquiry process.

You’re a writer too

• Educators are writers too.• What’s your list look like?• Start writing with them – model a process• Talk aloud• Ok to make mistakes

Understanding what motivates them

• Explore potential topics to write about• What do they like doing?• Provide contexts for writing• Acknowledge real life experiences first

Understanding what motivates them

• What interests?• Build group topic lists to refer to• Provide good contexts – good readings and

writings mena what?• Acknowledge real life skills and knowledge

Making connections between reading & writing

• Narrow writing lists reflect narrow reading interests?

• Start suggesting broader ranges of reading

Questions & answers

• What questions do you have about getting learners to see themselves as writers?

Getting started

• Finding something to write about• Take the brakes off• What will spark internal debate?• Write oodles without fear of red inking

Getting it down

• Start where the learners are at• Creative vs functional writing• What is ‘creative memory writing’?• Write first. Talk later.

• Deciding what tools they like to use

Getting lots of practice

• Use social network sites

• Understanding writing as a process

• Importance of publishing

Questions & answers

Fit for purpose writing

• Writing with purpose• Start from the pieces they have enjoyed

working on that they have controlled from start to finish

• Your role is to know when to intervene – to show that all writing requires the use of the same rules and regulations

• Some have different rules because the audience or style or purpose is different

Authentic writing tasks

• Building on what they know they can do already

• Use their longer pieces• Introduce different kinds of peer review• Focus on different areas of skill improvement

– refer progressions• Take every opportunity to teach the

metalanguage of writing

Developing their awareness

• Using the text to teach• And to make them aware of their knowledge

and skills so that they can apply them to different tasks

• e.g. writing sentences

finally

• Learners confident about themselves as writers with a repertoire that includes:– a process for getting started– a process for review– an awareness of the writing knowledge and skills

they draw on when they write, so that they can apply these to other writing tasks

Questions & answers