Instructional Strategies on WRITING

Writing covers such a vast area of knowledge.  It starts with the basics of forming letters and numbers and goes on to forming paragraphs and much, much more. 

Journaling:  http://olc.spsd.sk.ca/de/pd/instr/strats/journal/          Saskatoon Public Schools

 I think that this is a great instructional strategy to use with students.  I think that this is something that you can start when the students are in first or second grade.  Journaling allows the students to reflect upon their own ideas.  Journaling can be done in many different ways.  A teacher can give a writing prompt or let the student write about whatever is on his/her mind.  The following is an example of how the teacher in the Saskatoon Public School system using journaling in his/her classroom.

1.     Decide what type of journal you want to use in your classroom. Think about the purpose of the journal and how will you use it.

2.     Prepare materials. Your students' journals may be looseleaf notebooks or folders. Individual pages should be contained in some way so that they are not lost over time.

3.     Model initial entries. Using an overhead projector or classroom chart, work together to write a sample response. Students can copy the class response in their own journal or write one of their own.

4.     Schedule time for regular journal use. Students are all engaged in the act of writing and this enables individuals to generate ideas, observations and emotions.

I think that journaling can be used with all students.  I don't think that much needs to be adapted to fit the needs of students who are deaf or hard of hearing.  If anything I would say that maybe the amount of time could be modified for the student.  I think that journaling is great.  I think that it has a lot of positives like it allows the students to express themselves; it gives creative leeway, and lets the students teach themselves.  However, if not given a writing prompt students may fall into writing about the same things everyday not really expanding or giving more information.

At my student teaching placement I work with a variety of ages of students.  I want to focus on the writing strategies used with the kindergarten student I have.  This student wasn't even talking at the beginning of the school year.  So how do you even begin to introduce writing?  The student couldn't hold a pencil and needed assistance doing gross motor functions.  Again...how do you even begin to introduce writing? 

1. Modeling: I believe that modeling is very useful in beginning to write.  Children are like sponges and take everything in.  Sometimes all it takes is showing a child how to do something once and they are able to do it.

2. Hand-over-hand:  I think that this is a great strategy to use when younger students are struggling with writing certain letters or numbers.  I think that most kids will "pretend" to be writing when they are really young.  We all know what I mean because we have all seen the kiddo who scribbles, but is scribbling left to right.  This is a pre-writing skill.  My model teacher uses some hand-over-hand when it is needed.  For instance the student will see a letter or a word.  Then the student will attempt to write it.  If the student cannot do it the teacher will model it for the student.  If the student still does not grasp it the teacher will hand-over-hand assist the student.

I believe that writing happens in a scaffolding instruction.  This means that the teacher slowly backs off from how much help is being provided to the student.  I think this is very important and allow the student to become more independent in his/her school.

I don't believe that any of these methods need to be modified for a student who is deaf or hard of hearing.  I think that both modeling and hand-over-hand are great tools for helping a student learn the basic concepts of writing.  However, the instructor needs to be careful and needs to know when to stop providing these help tools.  If the instructor does not allow the student to try to write on his/her own the student may become dependent of the instructor.

National Writing Project:

http://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/922

On this website you can find tons of information about teaching writing and ways to incorporate it into your classroom.  On the website I found a list of 30 Ideas for Teaching Writing. You can click on each number and it will take you to an article that talks about that number.

1.   Use the shared events of students' lives to inspire writing.

2.   Establish an email dialogue between students from different schools who are reading the same book.

3.   Use writing to improve relations among students.

4.   Help student writers draw rich chunks of writing from endless sprawl.

5.   Work with words relevant to students' lives to help them build vocabulary.

6.   Help students analyze text by asking them to imagine dialogue between authors.

7.   Spotlight language and use group brainstorming to help students create poetry.

8.   Ask students to reflect on and write about their writing.

9.   Ease into writing workshops by presenting yourself as a model.

10.    Get students to focus on their writing by holding off on grading.

11.    Use casual talk about students' lives to generate writing.

12.    Give students a chance to write to an audience for real purpose.

13.    Practice and play with revision techniques.

14.    Pair students with adult reading/writing buddies.

15.    Teach "tension" to move students beyond fluency.

16.    Encourage descriptive writing by focusing on the sounds of words.

17.    Require written response to peers' writing.

18.    Make writing reflection tangible.

19.    Make grammar instruction dynamic.

20.    Ask students to experiment with sentence length.

21.    Help students ask questions about their writing.

22.    Challenge students to find active verbs.

23.    Require students to make a persuasive written argument in support of a final grade.

24.    Ground writing in social issues important to students.

25.    Encourage the "framing device" as an aid to cohesion in writing.

26.    Use real world examples to reinforce writing conventions.

27.    Think like a football coach.

28.    Allow classroom writing to take a page from yearbook writing.

29.    Use home language on the road to Standard English.

30.    Introduce multi-genre writing in the context of community service.

One of my favorites from this list is #2.  The world we live in today is very technology based.  I think that it is important to have knowledge of email.  I think that this strategy could be employed in the school that I am doing my student teaching at.  There are about ten elementary schools in the district I am in and they are all reading the same book.  I think that it would be great if the students could "pen pal" to other students at the different elementary schools.  I think that this would be a great way for the students to show that they are reading the book and it would let them see what other students that aren't in their class think about the book.  I also think that students would enjoy this because most kids LOVE to get on the computer.  With this particular strategy I think that we would have to make sure that our student who is deaf or hard of hearing can read and understand the book.  Besides that I don't think that there would need to be any modifications.  I don't really think that there is a con to this.  I think it would be a great way to facilitate writing.

I encourage everyone to at least look at this website because it is full of information.  It provides many different articles that you can read. 


 

Handwriting Without Tears

Handwriting Without Tears is a program that is used at my student teaching site.   It is written by Jan A. Olsen, OTR and Emily F. Knapton, OTR/L.  You can also find information at www.hwtears.com/click.  I will be working with the Pre-K version of the program.  This is a multisensory program that embraces children learning and it not being an awful experience.  This book is filled with lessons and activities for students.  This book focuses on language proficiency, social skills, fine and gross motor control, color and shape awareness, letter and number recognition, and counting. 

I'm sorry it is really hard to explain this system without being able to show what it is all about.  I wish that you all could see the workbook and how it is set up.  From my understanding it is working on multiple skills at one time.  The workbook seems to be laid out nicely and easy to follow.  I think that this would be a great program for students who are deaf or hard of hearing because it is focusing on so many different senses at one time.  There are songs that teach about writing and letters.  There are crafts that teach about writing too.  Overall, I think that this would be a very fun program to go through.  I am very excited to see how it is used within the classroom throughout my student teaching experience.