Writing has been a massive area of growth for me this year. Through structured literacy I had really altered my lens to writing. For one, the penny had really dropped for in in regards to how hard the process of writing is. Until I started my structured literacy journey I really had only scratched the surface on knowing just how many jigsaw parts had to go into being a writer.
While I had really started to master the focus on the mechanics of it all and the explicit teaching of the code, I still had not really thought about how children come up with an idea, or considered just what a huge cognitive load this process is, when everything else is being focused on at the same time.
With my focus on sentence level comprehension and fluency in reading, it was only logical that my next step was to do this in writing.
This is where colourful semantics came in. An oral language approach, it suited my needs down to the ground. Allowing me to teach the specifics of a complete sentence and in turn give children the ability to develop a sentence out loud, then record it down.
There was a lot of work that went on here, lots of explicit and very scaffolded teaching. But what has eventuated are children that can independently write a sentence, without having to struggle. In fact, they started to find writing so enjoyable, that they requested it if we happened to miss it that day.
Part of this journey has also been informed by the Syntax Project, which I am still getting my teeth into.
The important thing I realised, as that I wasn't taught to write, I learned to write, because I was a duck to water when it came to literacy, but when it comes to the nuts and bolts of writing, the syntax and semantics of writing, well I had not a clue! I failed that section in my 7th form exam, completely left it out, it scared me, still passed, but imagine how well I could have done.
So here was I, expecting writing to just come to students, like it had to me...and when it didn't, not really knowing what to do about it.
So colourful semantics and the syntax project, along with The Writing Revolution, have been game changers for me, and in turn, game changers for my children, because ultimately their progress starts with us and our knowledge.
Focusing on the who and the do in a sentence has also had a flow on to assisting reading comprehension, which has been fantastic!
Knowledge building has been huge here, I mean, if you have not got anything to write about, how an earth can you write. We have spent a lot of time working on writing factual sentences.
Then I came to my next conundrum, so my children can write a sentence, they can write a factual sentence based on what they have developed in our knowledge building and they can write a complete sentence based on a picture or another motivation, but how could I move them past just one sentence, without them resorting to lots of run on repetition. How could I get a series of quality sentences without the and then, and then, and then...the end?
Cognitive load wise, it is hard enough to keep an idea in your head, while still having to focus on formation, punctuation and spelling, but when asked to extend on this idea, it becomes really difficult for the beginner writer to do this.
So I had the idea of a short video. Sound off, playing short bursts for discussion. Then having children write a sentence basically capturing that short burst, coming back to share, then having a break, before we returned to write the next burst. Almost as if they were writing the voice over for that section of video.
The video itself, started with a calm sea, in the next burst a dolphin emerges, then jumps into the air, only to return with a splash into the ocean. The little clip I played was about 10 seconds.
This approach worked so well! The children loved it, they felt really successful and produced great writing for their first go. (I have year one and two)
While the approach took us all morning, there was a lot of learning to be had and children particularly enjoyed the sharing of ideas. I also found, because cognitive load was low, children started to use punctuation more independently. Doing it this way also allowed me to work explicitly with children on skills that we may have worked on, but not really used. For example, when going off to write the next sentence, should my full stop stay, or would a comma be more appropriate, does one idea flow into another, does it connect, should I add an and, or should I take an and out. Lots of on the spot teaching.
Something that also really helps my learners is our approximation paper. They keep a piece of paper next to them, when they come to a word they don't know how to spell, they have a go at spelling it, then bring it up to me. This has two benefits, one, I get to do a bit of explicit teaching with a sound they may be having a go at or for example a suffix they have not encountered and two, for those children who are often held back because they want to be right, they can have a go, but still have the correct spelling for their book. I find this leads to them writing a lot more and also being a bit more adventurous in what they write.
My whole class found this session achievable, my boys that often struggle, even requested we write like this all the time!
Of course because of how time consuming this was, writing like this for each session would not be possible. It is however doable once a week. Again because we are play based, children moved in and out of the writing task seamlessly.
I really feel that I am teaching writing this year. Not just the foundations, the formation, the spelling, the nuts and bolts, but actually teaching children to be writers. It feels really good.
Below are some examples, showing how some of the stories evolved over the session.
