What happened as a result of Christine’s teaching?
Christine’s class were engaged in their writing and wanted to improve. They enjoyed publishing their work on their own websites because they were able to share it with others, especially family in New Zealand and overseas.
The students enjoyed working together and helping others improve their writing. The class focused on aspects of mechanical English and their discussions reflected this. The students’ knowledge of writing surface features improved related to performance indicators of language features in the curriculum.
The ability to review work and make specific comments on individual students’ work, meant that the learning about writing and feedback could be student specific. Those students who had already mastered a specific writing skill enjoyed not being slowed down to be instructed about things they already knew. Other students, the ones who needed the writing skill explained to them, enjoyed the personal attention. The students also showed an increased interest in reading poetry written by others.
What evidence did Christine draw on from her own practice or that of her colleagues?
The comments that the students made when asked about the process they went through in achieving the poetry writing skills prompted Christine to think about the value of using personal websites for publication, not just for this lesson but for future work.
Christine's class - what happened next?
Published on: 26 Oct 2012
Students learn to engage in shared activities and conversations with other people, including family members and people in the wider community. Teachers encourage this process by cultivating the class as a learning community. As the engage in reflective discourse with others, students build the language that they need to take their learning further. NZC p34
Students showed an increasing understanding of how to write a text for a specific audience and how, by carefully selecting content and language, a different audience may be reached. NZC English curriculum level 4 Purposes and Audiences
