Observing a Child's Writing

 

https://theprimarypal.com/make-the-switch-to-using-pens-during-writing-workshop/ 

When assessing a child’s writing, educators must consider three important aspects. These aspects include the student’s strengths, weaknesses and recommendations to improve their skills. To further discuss the core areas mentioned above, there is one thing that must be carried out first. This is called an observation. Teachers should observe this learner in their beginning writing stages, even before writing and once the final piece has been completed down to the final product presented. Before the observation ever begins, the teacher should have a readymade checklist to clearly identify the things which is to be observed. Broken down below are each of the three aspects which are not only associated with physical attributes of the handwritten piece but also social and emotional attributes.

Strengths- In this section of the writing, the teacher keenly pays attention to the correct parts of the child’s writing which may include capitalization, subject-verb agreement, punctuation and more. The teacher overall critically reviews each sentence structure.   

Weaknesses- Here, the teacher identifies the students’ weak areas as well as the challenges they repeatedly face. This may be as simple as not starting the sentence with a capital letter or not using the punctuation marks in the manner that they should be utilized. For instance the sentence: i woke Up late I missed the bus?

Recommendations- After detecting the student's strengths and weaknesses, the educator may begin to make adequate suggestions on what the child should be learning more about or needs more practice with. Suggestions may also be made of his/ her teacher using a different writing strategy than what may be accustomed like Microsoft Word (editing tool) or a peer review.

Though detecting strengths and weaknesses and making recommendations, all students are considered excellent writers or authors of their pieces and should be viewed accordingly.

References

“Make the Switch to Using Pens during Writing Workshop - the Primary Pal.” The Primary Pal, 20 Jan. 2019, theprimarypal.com/make-the-switch-to-using-pens-during-writing-workshop/. Accessed 10 Nov. 2024.

 By Jaylene Peters 

Gallery Walk

https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Snapshot-from-one-of-the-Gallery-Walks-showing-the-different-collaborative-groups-working_fig1_280949073 

A Gallery Walk is a hands-on teaching approach in which students circulate in the classroom to view, engage in discussions, and react to various informational displays (posters, charts, or other visual formats) connected to a particular subject. It allows for active learning and collaborative discussions among peers. Students often have more than one image, station or display to engage with. Information is often presented visually (posters, charts, or images) and gallery walks allow students to move around meeting the needs of visual learners.

Three ways gallery walks may be used in the classrooms are:

·         Comprehension passages: Have students seated in groups of four. Each group will have different sets of questions. Members must check the wall to ensure it is the story that matches the questions. Once found, students must read the story and answer their questions.

·         Spooky Forest Gallery Walk: Different images are posted around the class along with spooky sounds that would come from the forest. This is a creative means by which educators allow students to express their creative side. This encourages Learners to become as descriptive as possible when writing descriptive passages as they are describing pictures placed around the classroom and the sounds in the forest they hear. For instance, on a spooky Forest walk they would hear the sounds of leaves falling, leaves crumbling, owls and wolves howling as well as seeing spooky Shadows of tall dark figured trees.

·         Science Gallery Walk: Students rotate around different stations that each describe a different planet.

The attached video describes a simple yet efficient way gallery walk could be used along with group collaboration and jigsaw learning. 

References

Drollinger, Mark . “Gallery Walk.” Www.youtube.com, 27 Oct. 2014, www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSt5echeRrM.

Hogan, John P. , and Dan Cernusca. Integrating Gallery Walks and Wikis in a Synergic Instructional Activity: An Exploratory Study of Students’ Perceptions. Dec. 2011, www.researchgate.net/figure/Snapshot-from-one-of-the-Gallery-Walks-showing-the-different-collaborative-groups-working_fig1_280949073.

 By Jaylene Peters

Peer Collaboration

 

Peer collaboration among students in writing is a group effort of improving their writing skills as a community of writers. According to the theory of Lev Vygotsky, children learn through social interactions with peers. Like a writing workshop where students improve their writing skills as a community, students will read their pieces of writing to one another and will share their interpretation of the work. The writer will then edit the piece based on responses after it has been critiqued. Dartmouth (2024) Peer collaboration allows students to build a correlation between the writer and their readers which helps them to improve their writing skills. Students can work as a whole class or in small groups. These interactions can prompt students to edit their piece as their peers may recognize grammatical errors. This may go beyond editing as the writers may want to evoke emotional responses from their readers thus allowing them to make improvements to the structure of the sentences and choice of words. Students can also engage in discussions about their pieces and explain their writing styles which will allow them to get to know  each other as writers on a more emotional level.

Peer collaboration can be applied in the grade six level. Students can be given a task to write a thrilling story that will be shared with the class. They will explain their intentions on writing the piece to gain feedback from their peers to determine if the objective has been accomplished.

By Prakash Seebarran 

Reference:

Dartmouth (2024)Collaborative Learning/Learning with Peers Collaborative Learning/Learning with Peers | Writing

Educational games

Individuals may hear the term games and associate it with video games which serve a child no purpose other than entertainment purposes. However, educational games serve a much more fascinating purpose than entertainment and excitement. Matter of fact, teachers who use educational games/ activities in their classes contribute to meaningful learning does not teach in isolation therefore leaning towards meaningful learning rather than rote learning/ memorization.

There are numerous sites that allow educators of all grade levels to create games for students based on the student’s age, age level, gender and interest. These are all factors that should be taken into consideration when curating these games. Taking them into consideration ensures student's interests are captured therefore keeping them engaged and motivated to complete the task at hand.

https://wordwall.net/en-us/community/games 

The image above displays simple games that students can easily manipulate yet still enjoy and learn something from.  These games are in the form of spin the wheels, jet flying, puzzles, matching and much more

This could be used for all grades from kindergarteners learning cvc/ cvce words to sixth graders learning historical sites. It is used across all subject areas and is free and available to all users.

Wordwall allows educators to create and manipulate games to their liking and the enhancement of their learner's performance.

As a teacher I see myself using this site as an engaging teacher resource that permits students to have fun while they learn. For instance, the link below is a game I once created for a Science lesson on planets. This game authorizes users to choose the correct spelling for each planet.

Link: https://wordwall.net/resource/62247963/name-the-planets

By: Jaylene Peters

Authentic and Relevant Writing Tasks

 

When assigning students tasks, it is crucial that teachers ensure that these assignments aren’t merely given to the class to keep them busy. Quite often, students are given tasks or assignments that have no benefit on their studies and overall lives. Tasks are sometimes given to allow time to pass while learners are kept seated working studiously. These serve no purpose other than ensuring the class is kept quietly seated.

Nevertheless, educators should utilize assignments that motivate learners, gives them the opportunity to choose topics, allow them to think critically and enhance students’ academic performance as a whole. This means that actual thought and creativity are put into the curation of these assignments on the teachers’ end. Authentic and relevant tasks should be implemented at all grade levels allowing appropriate skills and attitudes of students to be formed towards academic studies.

I see this concept being implemented in my classroom to allow meaningful learning rather than just passive learning or rote memorization. Here are five real-world examples students should engage with:

Wall work- Posted handwritten paragraphs, poems or stories in a particular area of the class. Invite parents or guardians to look at their children's pieces. Kindergarten students would create sentences.

Journaling- Journal about their feelings and state their understanding of a concept or whether they’d like assistance/ clarification on something.

Book publication- allowing students to create their own books in multiple classroom sessions. These books may be posted on blogs or in Google Classroom to be shared with others.

Letters- writing letters that serve a true purpose such as writing to the principal, minister, government officials or family members.

Reports- allowing learners to peer review each other’s work by making short notes at the side of their work.

By Jaylene Peters

Teacher Modelling

 

After students have been given a chance to freely produce their own pieces of writing, the teacher then models writing for the class which includes detailed explanation in the process of producing one, not for them to feel discouraged about the pieces they produced, but for them to see the thought process that goes into the decisions made in writing, especially when it comes to structuring sentences. It also encourages them to edit their writing as they will have a better understanding on how to structure their sentences to better express themselves. It's a means of scaffolding them as the teacher demonstrates the process. The teacher and students then work together which would involve them walking the teacher through the process as they are asked what would come next in the sentence or what is missing, and then they are allowed to attempt writing Independently. The teacher may emphasize punctuation, use of joining and sight words, and subject and verb agreement depending on the time and the workload. This is a gradual process to nurture the joy of the writing process. 

For a grade one class this would be useful after students have been exposed to certain site words and sentence structures. They can be given a prompt to write on, then the teacher will briefly model the process and put emphasis on a misconception noticed in most of the class’s writing.

By Prakash Seebarran 

Reference:

HIAS English Team (2022) Modelling Writing Title

Writing to Learn

 

University Park Campus School (2016) Writing can be used for learning if students are free to express themselves freely in their pieces as the objective is for them to use it as a tool to layout their thought process and not to produce a final product. This is a raw process that is imperfect as students can write about a topic freely without fear of being wrong or mistakes being highlighted in red ink. In this process the students think critically about a concept being taught and the teacher’s role is to simply provide guidance and general instructions to prompt the students thinking. Students can take control of their learning as they can apply prior knowledge and past experiences to think critically as they attempt to grasp a concept, and they can generate questions they want answered to allow them to be further involved in their learning. In this case students can jot down and analyze notes about a topic and reflect on the information to allow them to express their understanding in their own words about a topic. This can be applied to other subject areas which will allow for meaningful experience.

This can be used for a grade 4 class. An example of writing to learn is the use of a KWL chart that students can create in their books to record what they know, want to know, and what they learned, and they can freely write their responses during class sessions. They can also write journal entries on what they understand about a topic as a home assignment.

By Prakash Seebarran 

Reference:

University Park Campus School (2016) Low-Stakes Writing: Writing to Learn, Not Learning to Write Low-Stakes Writing: Writing to Learn, Not Learning to Write - YouTube

Revising and Editing

After all these steps in the process of writing has accomplished, to prove that the text ii perfect, revising and editing as part of the stages in writing should be used.

Revising and editing are basically the elimination of errors in the text which has resulted during the writing process and include ambiguous phrases, repetition, unclear structure, reorganizing and grammatical errors.

These stages enable craftiness of the writing process, including clarity, coherence and concision. Revising and editing also improves your vocabulary and makes the use of literary devices more efficient and therefore readers take keen interest in reading such pieces of work.

Finally, instructing students to revise and edit the writing process is very important in that they will improve on their writing skills and therefore produce effective work that will enroll themselves in becoming academic writers. Focusing on strengths and clarity, comparing texts and emphasizing on the body argument are some of the areas that are most challenging for instruction of the writing process.

By: Eugenia Davis

  

Dogs & Cats

 

(test run)

Persuasive Writing

 

How to Write a Persuasive Essay

There are different ways in which essays are written and persuasive writing is that type that presents logical and ethical arguments. The writer usually commences with a question that is either in favor of or opposing to the claim or topic so therefore appeals to the readers of a particular point of view, walking them through by the writer’s convincing opinions.

Hence, two main forms of persuasive writing are used to write persuasive essays which are the structural format and the modes of writing. The structural formats include the introduction, the body and the conclusion whereas the modes clarify the validity of the persuasive essay, based on three elements and are: Ethos, Pathos and logos.

Ethos is a writing element of argument and persuasion through which knowledge, good moral character and credibility are established, Readers are likely to trust this type of persuasive writing. Pathos is an emotional appeal made by the writer to the audience to evoke feelings. It provides interest to the readers, make the writing more compelling and aids in connection with the narrator. Logos is a rhetorical and persuasive element of writing that appeals to the audience. The readers believe the logics and rational out lined by the writer.

In addition, a good persuasive essay consists of a claim, reasons and evidence which is done after the writing process of prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and proofreading. Revising is a process of improving the first draft of persuasive writing. It is done by either adding to the content or removing errors. Ideas are reviewed and reorganized.

Finally, the editing process is reviewing and making changes to the writing so that it’s error-free. It also includes checking the structure, the transitions should be smooth and the structure of evidence are well supported by the argument. There are several ways of teaching editing and revising but my main ways includes, reminding students to focus on strengths and clarity of their writing, comparing texts and asking questions about the introduction, body and conclusion for example, Does the body of the writing has an argument?

 By: Eugenia Davis

  

Using Microsoft Word in the Classroom

Educators commonly integrate technology into their teaching through the use of videos and images. This method of displaying visual content related to specific topics serves as one of the simplest yet effective means of incorporating technology into lessons which most educational institutions require to meet the diversified learning styles in their classroom. There are numerous ways to utilize technology in the class as it advances as time progresses. One of these ways is the use of Microsoft Word Processing tool. This may mainly be used as a means to make student's handwriting legible. For instance, the case of a child who has muscle dystrophy where they get tired quickly or may require more time to write notes where the time is not available. It is not only applicable as a note taking application but also as a spelling, subject and verb agreement and capitalization helper.

The key advantage of this tool is that it allows students to detect faults and errors in their writing and offers a variety of solutions in which the error can be replaced. However, educators must know the extent to which this tool may be used. For instance, students should have the ability to self-correct or self-editing their pieces which boosts their confidence and enhances their overall critical thinking skills without the use of this application. Another major disadvantage is the limited or lack of resources for all leaners in the class.

By: Jaylene Peters