What is meaningful writing? To whom?

Is the topic potentially interesting to students? Do students have choice within the overall topic? Does the task challenge students’ thinking appropriately? Does the topic allow students to access prior knowledge in their responses? Is the topic accessible? Do students have the requisite knowledge to understand the task and frame a response? Does the topic provide cues to help writers generate content without over-prompting? Does the task suggest an audience and purpose? Does the task indicate what a “satisfactory” or “complete” response might look like for the particular writing situation? Does the task engage students in cognitive processes such as reflection, analysis, and synthesis? To what extent is the task “authentic”?

Summary of Key Content Specifications Tasks should: Address real-world, and age- and grade-appropriate issues. Be familiar and accessible to students, and not controversial in nature. Allow choices within parameters provided by the writing task. Draw upon students’ experiences and observations. Encourage the use of effective approaches to thinking and writing. Occasionally include an external stimulus, such as a brief reading passage or an illustration, photograph, table, chart, or other visual representation. Purpose should be: Clearly stated in the writing task. Consistent with the audience identified in the writing task. Audience should be: Specified or clearly implied in the writing task. Familiar and age- and grade-appropriate. Consistent with the purpose identified in the writing task. Varied depending on task complexity at each grade. Students should: Choose the form most suitable to their purpose and audience at grades 8 and 12 (to be field-tested prior to the 2011 assessment). Be asked to use a specified form at grade 4.

The need for prompts to state a purpose and to specify or strongly imply an audience. The importance of authenticity––real-world credible topics. An emphasis on accessibility: age-appropriate tasks that are recognizable to students and offer a degree of choice.

Writing About Personal Experience Write about an experience you had during a family holiday which was particularly memorable. It may be happy or sad, but should be a time when you had strong feelings.

See this PPT on My Elearning

benchmarks.pdf

Reinforcement writing Preparation writing Activity writing

Reinforcing language that has been taught Ex: the intermediate students have recently been practicing the third conditional (If + had(not) done + wound (not) have done) Practice exercise: Write two sentences about things you wish had turned our differently, and two sentences about things you are pleas about. Students may write: If I had not failed my exams, I would have gone to university. If I had not gone to that party, I would not have met my boyfriend.

Writing is frequently useful as preparation for some other activity, in particular when students write sentences as a preamble to discussion activities. Ex: Students may be asked to write a sentence saying what their opinion is about a certain topic. Practice exercise: I like/do not like going to parties because….. In speaking class, discussion activity…

Writing is used to help students perform a different kind of activity. For example, teachers often ask students to write short dialogues which they will then act out.

Is to help students to be come better writers and to learn how to write in various genres using different registers. Thus, general language improvement may occur, but that is a by-product of a “writing-for-writing” activity, not its main purpose. Writing for writing is very different from the teaching of grammatical or lexical accuracy and range. Writing is to help students to communicate real messages in an appropriate manner.