Writing Programme

 

The Mini-Meet that I went to was by Ella Sharma at Papakura Central School. 

Three takeaways: 

- student ownership of learning 

- students being able to articulate their learning

- having a meaningful purpose for writing 

This workshop prompted my thinking, "Why is it important for me to be an excellent practitioner in teaching writing??" These ideas come to mind...

- Writing is about giving kids a voice (student ownership) 

- Writing is about valuing the voice of students (meaningful writing purposes) 

- Writing is an important transferrable skill to successful live in our society (knowledge/skill transfer) 

Which makes me think... when our kids leave Year 6 - what would they be doing...

- confidently delivering speeches and reports on topics that are important to them 

- presenting original spoken word poetry or rap 

- sharing their stories and the stories that they want to read

- uplifting others through their stories, giving voice to the feelings and ways of thinking that are important within their world 

- able to research and write reports on issues in their school, community or society 

And in each of the year levels before, students would be doing the same things, at a stage appropriate level. 

We had some rich discussions about our own experiences in teaching writing following the workshop. It prompted me to think about the years of experience and expertise within that room - sitting amongst current and former colleagues, some of whom I know are the top of their field. I often tell my students - you classmates are your greatest resource - they think differently to you, they know things you don't know. Learn from them. 

I wonder what it would be like to be in a workshop where we could gather the expertise and knowledge from such a group. This is my imagining what such a workshop could look like, using SOLO taxonomy (the framework that is the eAsttle assessment is based upon) 

- introductions, making connections, acknowledging everyone's time and expertise  (5 minutes)

- a fun, quick game to help participants to move into different groups  (5 minutes) 

- in groups, recording the challenges / difficulties / problems that we experience in our writing programmes (5 minutes) 

then sharing to the wider group (uni-structural, multi-structural thinking) Each group recording the ideas on hexagons (5 minutes) 

- in groups, using the hexagons to sort the ideas, noticing which ideas are connected and joining the hexagons to show this. (relational level thinking). (5 minutes) 

- Generalising. Grouping the ideas around a theme (extended abstract thinking) (5 minutes)

- Prioritising the themes... identifying the three most important to address (relational thinking). (5 minutes)

- Creating solutions (extended abstract thinking) (10 minutes) 

Each group chooses one of the top 3 themes/issues/challenges/difficulties (by now these should be clearly defined in their minds.) Each group spends some time discussing possible solutions using these guiding questions: 

• From research or experience experience, what do I know works?
• What is realistic for teachers to implement? 
  
• How can teach differently instead of working harder? 
• What habits would teachers need change or start?
  
• What habits would students need to change or start? 
• How would we need to collaborate to make this happen?

Each small group could then share with the wider group.  (10 minutes) 

When I write it down, this sounds intense, but I think it would be an exciting way of learning together as professionals. I would like to try it with students also, perhaps over a number of sessions. 

Finally, the question would be - how could use what we have learned here in other areas? 

Let the learning continue...