A Purpose For Writing, and a Focus on Vocabulary and Structure

Intrinsic Motivation to Write

Does this seem familiar? Week 1 of the first school term, students given the prompt,

"Today we are going to write about our holidays". 

Some children start writing furiously, sharing their moment to moment account of action packed holidays. Others sit staring off into space, deciphering whether the teacher means writing about the video games they played with their brother or going to work with dad. The holidays for what they were, seemed like a life time ago now that they are back at school. 

"Why do I have to do this? It is so boring...." 

"I wonder what it is like to go to the adventure park, or on a plane like some of the other kids?... Mum said she would take us to the beach when she gets time off from her night job, at the moment she needs to sleep. Why do I have to do this dumb writing stuff? I don't know what to write.... In the holidays I played video games with my brother, I won!.... now what?" 

What I noticed in that first week were blank gazes, reluctance to write, little knowledge or evidence of the writing process and limited experiences or ideas shared through writing. The first step was to get my learners excited about writing, to give students a purpose to write, and experiences to write about.

This is what happened...

Planting a Seed 

Seeing the 'Why' Behind Writing

Motivated by their curiosity of the living world, and an opportunity to build on prior knowledge of growing plants from the previous school year, the children became horticultural experts. The aim: To use their knowledge of plants to teach others. 

Introducing the Purpose of the Writing; the use of a little drama, humour and a challenge:

Humorously I acted out my experience last year planting seeds with the year 1's, who of course for the purpose of this, knew very little of such matters. From here I set a writing challenge for the children. 

The children were to give a seed packet to a Year 1 buddy. This packet would contain a bean seed, instructions for planting, and a report about plants so their little friends could learn all about the plant they are growing. 

Of course this would require the children to become experts on plants themselves.

Using the Writing Process to Create, with Inspiration as the Fuel:

In order for the children experience success they would need to have content to write about. Feeding in of ideas came from language experiences, activities and reading e.g. planting a seed themselves and recording the steps, reading books about plants, reading and completing science experiments on photosynthesis, plants creating water vapour, and the needs of a plant for survival. 

This would be the fuel for their writing. 

Doubts crept in when I glanced over at other colleagues, as they completed their 8th piece of writing within those first few weeks, and years of pressure to have students writing everyday. Structured writing sessions seemed a stark comparison as my students explored, played, read, observed and talked about their discoveries. But when the writing came, it came with vigour. The children were serious about sharing their knowledge. They used content specific vocabulary and showed a clear understanding of the topic they were writing about. 

Aiming High and Celebrating Success:

According to the Literacy Learning Progressions by the end of Year 3 children need to "draw on knowledge and skills that include: using increasingly specific words and phrases (e.g., adjectives and more precise nouns and verbs) that are appropriate to the content of the text (http://literacyprogressions.tki.org.nz)."

One thing I took away from an ALL (Accelerated Literacy Learning) conference I attended this year was the concept of knowing where students need to be by the end of three years at school and working to those expectations instead of concentrating on filling in gaps in students learning from previous years. 

Also the words "What is going to get you the most bang for your buck? (Anna- The All facilitator I have been working with)", resonated as I contemplated the learning focus I wanted students to achieve. What learning intention would lift a piece of writing to meet the Year 3 standard?

Learning Intention: WALT use interesting vocabulary in our writing. 

Therefore it was my job was to ensure using context specific vocabulary was achievable for all, no matter whether students were writing two sentences or two pages. Words were explored, defined, used and celebrated. Words and their definitions were made visible around the classroom. Language experiences and the world of science gave students new and exciting vocabulary that they were able to use in their writing. Even shorter texts came alive with words such as water vapour and germination. 

Students Sharing Their Beautiful Thinking, Language and Observations of the World:

"After three years at school, students independently create texts using a process that will help them achieve their specific purpose for writing. Where appropriate, their texts are clearly directed to a particular audience through appropriate choice of content, language, and text form (http://literacyprogressions.tki.org.nz)."

WALT structure our writing to suit the purpose.

The given task consisted of two different text structures, procedural and report writing. The purpose of each type of writing was discussed in relation to the task.  

Examples of procedural wring and reports were picked apart with the students to show the features and identify success criteria. 

Children planned their procedural piece as they planted a seed, recording the 'bossy verbs' they would use, as they completed the activity themselves. Drawing diagrams to illustrated what they were doing. "How could they make their instructions more explicit? What will the reader need to know? Where should they plant their seed? Why? How deep does the seed need to be?"

They had a plan to guide their draft. Their main ideas already in front of them, and words to expand these ideas further, at forefront of their minds, ready to put down on paper. This was the same when it came to their report. Excited about sharing their scientific vocabulary and all their new learning, their ideas flowed. 

Double Dosing For Those Who Need It

All children needed to experience success in achieving the learning intentions. This meant ensuring those children with more limited language experiences understood the vocabulary, and the text structures. Before each lesson I would take a group of students and front load them by exposing them to the learning that they would be exploring further within that day's literacy session. This could have consisted of watching a video on photosynthesis and pulling out key vocabulary, or reading a report on elephants and identifying the structural features. This not only double dosed these children with the knowledge and skills needed but gave them the confidence to answer questions and share ideas in class. They came to each literacy session with prior knowledge and experience to share. 

Where To From Here?

1) Keep the Learning Intention, using interesting vocabulary, as a focus throughout the term, as the text type changes to meet other writing purposes e.g. descriptive or narrative. Celebrate their success in achieving this and create an environment where words are discovered, shared, explored, played with, and used to add flavour to their writing. 

2) Continue to make sure that children are not only inspired to write, with a purpose fuelling their writing, but they have content to write about. 

3) Explicitly teach the writing process, a need made evident from observing my learners writing behaviours.