Video scenario #3

‘Enhancing literacy in secondary English’ (DEST,2001), Scenario 3. Teaching writing.

1.       Teacher implementing ideas of explicit and systematic teaching through focus on teaching specific skills. The teacher takes the students step by step through different ways of making meaning. In this particular scenario the skill is essay writing, and the teacher explicitly instructs the students in the form, structure, and metalanguage of essay writing.

2.       What strategies did  you use to differentiate learning to meet the different needs of your student group? What reflective thinking did you use at the conclusion of the teaching plan for the students to reflect on their learning? What assessment tool was used to evaluate or assess the students skill in essay writing?

3.       I think the teaching/learning sequence did address the syllabus because students evidently were addressing:  

a.       Outcome 1 (7-10)  learning about the forms and features of language, the structures of texts (1.15) ; and learning to: Compose ...critical texts for different purposes, audiences and contexts

b.      Outcome 2 – Students learn to edit through reading aloud and peer editing, checking accuracy, paragraphing, cohesion, grammar, spelling and punctuation (2.5); Students learn about:  different ways of using feedback to improve their texts (2.11),  explicit criteria for judging the effectiveness of a text for its purpose, audience and context (2.12); and especially

c.       Outcome 4 “A student uses and describes language forms and features, and structures of texts appropriate to different purposes, audiences and contexts”

d.      Outcome 7 “A student thinks critically and interpretively about information, ideas and arguments to respond to and compose texts”

4.       There is evidence in this scenario of student learning through student class discussion and  the individual student reflecting on his learning. The students were able to use the metalanguage of essay writing: introduction, topic sentence, paragraph, conclusion.

5.       The explicit and systematic teaching are similar to what I have experienced or observed in the past:  teaching explicit skill development to learn about form and structure; the question, answer response between teacher and student  is  traditional. However, the focus on student self reflection of their written work (e.g. annotation of their essay structure to explicitly review what they have done) is something that I would not have experienced as a student in the classroom. Often too, as a student the focus of the lesson was not made explicit, which is not the case here.

6.       The pedagogy being applied here (and referenced by the teachers in the video) is  critical reading and writing (critical literacy approach). Moving beyond the personal response of the Growth model to critical reflection on what they are composing, and the purpose. The strength of the pedagogy is that the students have to reflect on their learning. They have to critically evaluate their composed texts.