Using Authorship to promote better writers – Part 17

WHAT?

For the PaCT assessment in writing, one of the aspects is called creating texts to influence others. This aspect has 5 signposts on the progressions  and these become more complex, the signposts are weighted on NZC as well. The signpost that I chose to focus on this term due my assessment data was the 3rd sign post.

This is explanation of that signpost - Even when they are novice writers, students create texts in order to challenge their audience to do something or think about something differently. They write to argue a point or persuade someone to change their mind.

Expert writers know how to effectively achieve these purposes. They choose appropriate structures and features, and control the language they use in order to make the maximum impact on their audience.

One of the illustrations is called Grandpa 2 – is an invitation from a boy to his Grandfather to come to a helper’s morning tea because he has helped with the planting of the garden. This became the basis of my next writing lesson. I copied and pasted the invite (corrected spelling and typos), with the plan and this formed the exemplar for the children. I handed out 2 pieces of paper and encouraged the children to glue them in their books side by side so that they could see how the plan helps scaffold the letter. During the analysis I lead the children to notice the planning and the letter setting out. I used question prompts - Why has Sam written the letter? The children highlighted in the letter how Sam has used the plan to help him scaffold his ideas. I questioned the class about the use of paragraphs and how the plan helped with the structure of the letter.

To connect this writing lesson to the children’s own life, I told the children that we would be sending out invites for our Grandparent/Whanau Day and that I would be sending them out via Seesaw messaging. I introduce the idea of persuading or convincing someone at this point. The children spoke with a buddy what points we could persuade a special person to come to our class on this special day. They brainstormed the WHAT, WHEN, WHERE, WHY for the day.

The children then closed their eyes and I spoke -  “I want you to think about your Grandparents… What would they want to know about Grandparents Day? What sorts of things would they like to do here at school in the classroom? Do they know about using iPads what sorts of things do think they would find interesting? How can we persuade them to buy our recycled paper?” The class constructed the success criteria using What, When, Where, and Why, the reasons for coming, choosing the best words and including a closing - review reasons why you want them to come.

The children first were asked to create a plan as shown in the exemplar and this was the first component of the writing lesson and all the children had to write the first day. I haven’t exposed the children to many writing planners as I use graphic organisers for reading and during topic research. The lesson was successful and the next day we began crafting our invites for Grandparents/Whanau Day. One child struggled as both sets of Grandparents were away and he wanted them to come and knew that it was impossible as well. Some children wrote directly onto a Google doc and shared it with me and then I was able to send the message out. One set of Grandparents replied and I quick show the class the power of persuasion, this also helped to motivate the rest of the class.

I was away for Grandparents/Whanau Day, but by all accounts it was a very successful day and at one time there were 25 adults roaming the class and working with the children.

SO WHAT?

The children were able to use the plan to help scaffold their writing successfully although some of the invitations lacked substance. I didn’t send out as many messages as I hoped from the children directly to family and whanau. I did send an all families post out myself informing them of the upcoming event as I know I have Grandparents linked to the children’s portfolios.

The plan helped the children scaffold their writing into paragraphs but I’m not too sure that they realise the purpose of paragraphs and how to write them effectively.

NOW WHAT?

I need to find a way to teach the writing of paragraphs and help the children understand their purpose. Hopefully I can build on their enthusiasm for their grandparents and maybe writing character description of them might be a way to do that. I know that Gail Loane’s “I’ve got something to say” book may the place to go for inspiration and another way to utilise the ‘seed’ notebooks again.

"Ideas are like rabbits. You get a couple and learn how to handle them, and pretty soon you have a dozen."
― John Steinbeck