Wednesday 25 July 2012

CPL - Beliefs in Writing

I found this session very insightful.  Being given the opportunity to reflect on what I think my beliefs in writing are. Having to come up with a top 5, here is what I came up with:

  1. Everyone has the capacity to write, writing can be taught, and teachers can help students to become better writers/ Composing occurs in different modalities and technologies.
  2. Writing and reading are related.
  3. Writing grows out of many different purposes.
  4. Writing is a process.
  5. Assessment of writing involves complex, informed, human judgement.
It was amazing the common beliefs that we shared as a staff, with reading and writing are related and writing is a process.  One that I would like to see in the top is my number 1 as this states expectations in students and our schools ICT capabilities.  

One thing that has sat with me since this session is that I need to make explicit to my students that they write every day, all day for a range of different purposes.  


Monday 16 July 2012

Writing Groups Day 1

Today I did it!!! Little hassle at all.  I think I found it more draining on me as it is intense teaching groups all morning.  Was it a success?  Hell yeah! All students were engaged focused and enjoyed writing.  One group worked on Kurpoof making digital movies using speech.  This was helpful as they were practising writing but given the settings and themes.  Another group worked on a story starter, When I looked down the toilet... this was really successful.  These students were my best writer but it gave me a better picture of where they were at.  I had several creative ones but others that rambled.  By allowing this group to share at the end it opened them to reflect on their writing.  My group I worked with need a lot of support and we will basically need to write together.  I need to come up with ways to get them to manipulate writing to see it in the view of the audience.

The one opportunity that I am going to make sure that I do at the end of writing is to share pieces and have self reflection time.