Using 4-step Approach to Teach Writing 9 th March 2012 (Friday) 1:45 pm – 4:00 pm Language Learning Support Section Education Bureau

Planning the writing curriculum 1. Using task-based approach Be meaningful, purposeful and authentic With clear audience and purpose (s) Have specific text type (s) targeted

2. Providing chances for students to use language skills Make effective use of the textbook materials Set writing tasks that can apply vocabulary and structures to express thoughts and feelings Planning the writing curriculum

3. Enabling students to write different text types Provide sufficient reading input for writing output Expose students to a variety of text types Teach text features and language structures of specific text types Experience different phases of writing process collaboratively Planning the writing curriculum

Planning the writing curriculum – designing writing tasks 1 Generating & organising writing ideas – Using graphic organisers 2 Turning ideas into a text – using different writing activities 3 Revising, editing & assessing 4 4-step Approach

Writing in Action: Inside the classroom

School case 1 Writing a story ending

4-Step Approach in teaching writing Planning the writing curriculum – designing writing tasks 1 Generating & organising writing ideas – Using graphic organisers 2 Turning ideas into a text – using different writing activities 3 Revising, editing & assessing 4

Develop writing tasks using thematic approach Level: Primary 3 Unit: Unit 10 Keeping Pets Background Teachers wanted to improve students’ writing competence Picture story was chosen as the focus as teachers wanted students to be exposed to a variety of text types.

Emphases in the Teaching Design Pre-writing input was emphasised during planning and teaching: 1. Elements of story were taught explicitly 2. Graphic organiser was introduced to students as a planning tool for writing 3. Shared writing was done to demonstrate the writing process 4. Unified editing codes was developed for both teachers and students to facilitate Assessment for Learning (AFL) 5. Self and peer editing was done to strengthen students’ sense of learning ownership

Understanding the instructions

What makes a good story?

4-Step Approach in teaching writing Planning the writing curriculum – designing writing tasks 1 Generating & organising writing ideas – Using graphic organisers 2 Turning ideas into a text – using different writing activities 3 Revising, editing & assessing 4

Emphases in the Teaching Design Pre-writing input was emphasised during planning and teaching: 1. Elements of story were taught explicitly 2. Graphic organiser was introduced to students 3. Shared writing was done to demonstrate the writing process 4. Unified editing codes was developed for both teachers and students to facilitate Assessment for Learning (AFL) 5. Self and peer editing was done to strengthen students’ sense of learning ownership

Using graphic organisers to understand the construction of the text 2 Deconstructing a story

4-Step Approach in teaching writing Planning the writing curriculum – designing writing tasks 1 Generating & organising writing ideas – Using graphic organisers 2 Turning ideas into a text – using different writing activities 3 Revising, editing & assessing 4

Emphases in the Teaching Design Pre-writing input was emphasised during planning and teaching: 1. Elements of story were taught explicitly 2. Graphic organiser was introduced to students as a planning tool for writing 3. Shared writing was done to demonstrate the writing process 4. Unified editing codes was developed for both teachers and students to facilitate Assessment for Learning (AFL) 5. Self and peer editing was done to strengthen students’ sense of learning ownership

Main Task You keep a cat as a pet at home. Look at the pictures and write a story about it. You may use the words in the boxes to help you. What happens in the end? Finish the story. ? Grandma / catch birds sleep/ sausages fish bowl / sofa Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3

Picture 1 Picture 2 Picture 3

4-Step Approach in teaching writing Planning the writing curriculum – designing writing tasks 1 Generating & organising writing ideas – Using graphic organisers 2 Turning ideas into a text – using different writing activities 3 Revising, editing & assessing 4

Emphases in the Teaching Design Pre-writing input was emphasised during planning and teaching: 1. Elements of story were taught explicitly 2. Graphic organiser was introduced to students as a planning tool for writing 3. Shared writing was done to demonstrate the writing process 4. Unified editing codes was developed for both teachers and students to facilitate Assessment for Learning (AFL) 5. Self and peer editing was done to strengthen students’ sense of learning ownership

Marking codes Examples (  : Wrong  : Correct) v.f. (Verb form) v.f.  I like play the piano.  I like playing the piano. adj. (Adjective) adj.  John is a carefully driver.  John is a careful driver. adv. (Adverb) adv.  Mary runs slow.  Mary runs slowly. sp. (Spelling) sp.  The childen are clever.  The children are clever. w.w. (Wrong word) w.w.  We forget to take our books.  We forget to bring our books. Tense (T.) T.  I watch TV last night.  I watched TV last night. plur. (Plural) plur.  Peter likes apple.  Peter likes apples. sing. (Singular) sing.  I have a brothers.  I have a brother. art. (Article) art.  Ann has a orange.  Ann has an orange. Editing codes introduced to students

Emphases in the Teaching Design Pre-writing input was emphasised during planning and teaching: 1. Elements of story were taught explicitly 2. Graphic organiser was introduced to students as a planning tool for writing 3. Shared writing was done to demonstrate the writing process 4. Unified editing codes was developed for both teachers and students to facilitate Assessment for Learning (AFL) 5. Self and peer editing was done to strengthen students’ sense of learning ownership

Revising & Editing: 3. Use the revision checklist and editing checklist below to help you check your work. Self assessment done before peer assessment Writing the final draft

Writing a picture story Read the pictures and write a story about them. What to do?

Understanding the task Cindy likes dogs. She keeps a puppy at home. Look at the pictures and write a story in about 30 words. You may use the words in the boxes to help you. What happened in the end? Finish the story. ? Cindy / feed lost/ poster / find see/ find/ return

Parts of a story: Characters SettingProblem Events Story Where Resolution & Ending What happens?

Who are the characters? Characters Cindy likes dogs. She keeps a puppy at home. Look at the pictures and write a story in about 30 words. You may use the words in the boxes to help you. What happened in the end? Finish the story. ? Cindy / feed lost/ poster / find see/ find/ return

Parts of a story: Characters SettingProblem Story Where Resolution & Ending Events What happens?

Cindy likes dogs. She keeps a puppy at home. Look at the pictures and write a story in about 30 words. You may use the words in the boxes to help you. What happened in the end? Finish the story. ? Cindy / feed lost/ poster / find see/ find/ return Setting Where Where does the story take place?

Parts of a story: Characters SettingProblem Story When Where Resolution & Ending Events What happens?

Problem Cindy likes dogs. She keeps a puppy at home. Look at the pictures and write a story in about 30 words. You may use the words in the boxes to help you. What happened in the end? Finish the story. ? Cindy / feed lost/ poster / find see/ find/ return What happens? How do the character feel? Events What happens?

Parts of a story: Characters SettingProblem Story When Where Resolution & Ending Events What happens?

What does the character do to solve the problem? Cindy likes dogs. She keeps a puppy at home. Look at the pictures and write a story in about 30 words. You may use the words in the boxes to help you. What happened in the end? Finish the story. ? Cindy / feed lost/ poster / find see/ find/ return Resolution How does the character feel? What happens?

Parts of a story: Characters SettingProblem Resolution & Events Story When Where Ending

Cindy likes dogs. She keeps a puppy at home. Look at the pictures and write a story in about 30 words. You may use the words in the boxes to help you. What happened in the end? Finish the story. ? Cindy / feed lost/ poster / find see/ find/ return Ending What happens finally?

LevelP6 Language focus - Adjectives to describe personality - Use ” who ” to add information about a person - Use “ that ” to add information about something - Use “ myself ”, “ herself ”, “ ourselves ”, etc to refer to people or things mentioned before Text types exposed - Conversations -Notes - s - Poems Writing TaskWrite a letter of appreciation to a good friend Vs letter letter More personal & sincere

Why writing a letter? / a common text type that students have to master / a meaningful and purposeful task / authentic (real audience) / teach moral values and attitudes / allow students to put vocabulary items and target structures in use

4-Step Approach in teaching writing Planning the writing curriculum – Designing writing tasks 1

4-Step Approach in teaching writing Planning the writing curriculum – Designing writing tasks 1 Understanding the organisation of text type using graphic organisers 2

Text analysis based on graphic organiser

How does a letter structure?

What is the expected end product? Dear Annie, We have been friends for 6 years and I want to thank you for all the things you did for me. I am happy to have a friend who is always kind to me. You listen to me when I am sad. You are not angry with me when I make mistakes. I am delighted to have a friend who is always helpful to me. When I can ’ t do the homework myself, you always teach me to do it. I am lucky to have a friend who is so patient. When I can ’ t do the sums myself, you always teach me how to do them. All the teachers would like to have a student who is hardworking and smart like you. In our spare time, we always have fun. Do you remember we liked to make cookies ourselves? They were not yummy but we had fun! I enjoy shopping and eating with you too. I am happy to have you to play ball games with me because I can ’ t play ball games myself. Thank you, my friend. Hope our friendship will last forever. Love, Peggy Salutation Greeting & signature Idea 1 Idea 2 Idea 3 Idea 4 Idea 5 Idea 6

4-Step Approach in teaching writing Planning the writing curriculum – designing writing tasks 1 Understanding the organisation of text type using graphic organisers 2 Generating ideas and turning ideas into a text using different writing activities 3

School-based example A booklet with a series of activities developed to help generate ideas and give language input.

Why is a sample included? Dear Annie, We have been friends for 6 years and I want to thank you for all the things you did for me. I am happy to have a friend who is always kind to me. You listen to me when I am sad. You are not angry with me when I make mistakes. I am delighted to have a friend who is always helpful to me. When I can ’ t do the homework myself, you always teach me to do it. I am lucky to have a friend who is so patient. When I can ’ t do the sums myself, you always teach me how to do them. All the teachers would like to have a student who is hardworking and smart like you. In our spare time, we always have fun. Do you remember we liked to make cookies ourselves? They were not yummy but we had fun! I enjoy shopping and eating with you too. I am happy to have you to play ball games with me because I can ’ t play ball games myself. Thank you, my friend. Hope our friendship will last forever. Love, Peggy Encourage students to put the language learned in use

4-Step Approach in teaching writing Planning the writing curriculum – designing writing tasks 1 Generating & organising writing ideas – Using graphic organisers 2 Turning ideas into a text – using different writing activities 3 Revising, editing & Assessing 4

“… There should be an emphasis on the process of writing as well as the product. ” I do careful planning! You make writing easy for me! StudentTeacher

Points to note: 1. Choose a relevant and meaningful text type to write 2. Make use of graphic organisers to do text analysis with students 3. Think of relevant activities to give students content, organisation and language input 4. Show samples if necessary 5. Encourage revising and editing

Planning the writing curriculum

Writing in Action: Outside the classroom

 To provide an opportunity for students to apply the writing skills learnt in class through the use of the 4-step approach  To provide a platform for students to produce a piece of writing collaboratively  To develop students' generic skills (e.g. communication, creativity and collaboration)  For students to learn from each other and know more about their own strengths and weaknesses Aims of the activity:

What writing activities do students take part in?

1. Warm up activities a. Categorising words and phrases b. Rearranging jumbled words into sentences c. Rearranging jumbled sentences into a paragraph d. Matching supporting details with main ideas 2. Writing process

3. Editing activity – Spot the mistakes

Writing Assessment

CONTENT interesting & relevant ideas supporting details an appropriate ending clear information sufficient number of words LANGUAGE & ORGANISATION use a (small) range of vocabulary use suitable (different) sentence patterns use cohesive devices to link ideas within & between paragraphs make no / few grammatical & spelling mistakes write in appropriate format and with language structures

Impact of 4-Step Approach on Writing

More students are able to:More work needs to be done in the following areas: Write stories with beginning, middle and ending Elaborate ideas Write more words (longest text: 237 words) Creativity Use the simple past tense when writing stories Incorporate the use of dialogues Use punctuations correctly in dialogues Spelling (e.g. leson, putted, maked), Prepositions (e.g. out at (of)) Punctuations (use commas instead of full stops to break sentences) L1 interference (e.g. very like, gave teacher punish, etc.) Write in paragraphs Use a variety of cohesive devices (e.g. After a day, because, suddenly, finally, etc.) Use some cohesive devices appropriately (e.g. two day) Content Language Organisation

Teachers’ observations After adopting 4-Step Approach to teach writing, students have become more confident writers show improved writing fluency are more aware of the fact that writing is a process recognise the features of different text types use graphic organisers to plan their writing have developed the habit of revising and editing

Planning the curriculum holistically Making use of textbook and Reading Workshop materials to design writing tasks Deconstructing good reading texts to help students understand the features of different text types Using graphic organisers to brainstorm and organise ideas