Sabbatical Report - Oranga School Website

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Sabbatical Report 2009 1.0 Purpose: Will using the research around effective strategies for teaching students with learning difficulties by Steve Graham and Karen Hayes be effective in increasing the levels of writing achievement of Pasifika students at Oranga Primary? 2.0 Background: This report has stemmed from a ten week sabbatical granted to me by the Ministry of Education in 2010. The idea for the topic originated from an Auckland University paper that I participated in called the “Psychology of Writing” in 2009. It was while studying during 2009 that I came across the work of Steve Graham and Karen Harris, and in particular their book entitled “Writing Better: effective strategies for teaching students with learning difficulties” (2005). This introduced me to the explicit teaching of writing strategies using the self regulated development model (SRSD). I will explain this in more depth later. The task that I carried out for this sabbatical has included the teaching of small groups and then the teaching of the same writing strategies to an entire class (see appendix 2 for the writing strategies taught). Due to the relatively transient nature of the student population I have found that a large number of the original children have either left during the small group phase of this project or have left prior to the final assessment task at the end of Term 3 of this year (i.e., from the 39 children taught these strategies I have end of the year data for 21). Firstly the report looks at some literature around the explicit teaching of writing strategies. Secondly the report investigates how the explicit teaching of writing strategies has shown to be effective. Thirdly the report addresses how teacher practice can influence student achievement in writing and lastly some concluding comments including the outcomes from the group and class teaching of the writing strategies. 3.0 How does the ‘selection’ of literature establish the explicit teaching of writing strategies as important? The pedagogical practice of explicitly teaching writing strategies is important because “writing is a difficult and demanding task, requiring extensive selfregulation and attention and control…This view is acknowledged, either explicitly or implicitly in most current models of composing” (Graham, Harris, & Troia, 1998). Writing includes co-ordinating topic knowledge, planning, writing text, reviewing, revising and monitoring, all of which place multiple demands on writers (Albertson & Billingsley, 1997). De La Paz et al. (2002) situate writing as a very demanding task that places a high demand on cognitive resources and this requires the writer to acquire strategies to regulate the writing Jonathan Ramsay Oranga Primary - One Tree Hill - Auckland
Sabbatical Report 2009 process (e.g. strategies for planning, monitoring, evaluating and revising), skills for producing text (e.g., handwriting, spelling, sentence construction) and knowledge about genre and the conventions of writing. The use of a selfregulation procedure like planning and revising can transform and hugely enhance writing. When the Graham et al. (1998) study went to print there had been 20 studies using the Self Regulated Strategy Development model 1 (SRSD) to teach writing strategies for planning and revising. These have included brainstorming, self monitoring of productivity, reading for information, goal setting, revision using peer feedback, and mechanics and substance revision. The SRSD model of strategy teaching has led to quality, knowledge, approach and self-efficacy improvements in students’ writing (Graham et al., 1998). Albertson et al. (1997), De La Paz et al. (2002), and Graham et al. (1998) have shown the explicit teaching of planning strategies to be important because planning is a critical element in skilled writing and high levels of planning are particularly evident in the writing behaviour of expert writers. The studies also show the practice of strategy instruction to be important as a means of addressing students’ academic weaknesses. 4.0 How is the practice of explicit writing strategy instruction defined and operationalised? The practice of explicitly teaching writing strategies is defined in studies as the explicit teaching by an adult of strategies aimed at increasing the overall quality of the students writing once the intervention has come to its completion. Albertson et al. (1997) define the practice as explicit teaching of strategies related to planning and reviewing behaviours of writers. They studied whether teaching planning and reviewing strategies would have an effect on story writing processes and outcomes in a variety of ways. The study aimed to answer a number of questions, including “Does strategy instruction increase the amount of time gifted participants planned, produced text, reviewed, edited and revised? Does strategy instruction have an affect on the frequency of words written during story time? Does strategy instruction have an affect on the number of story elements included in stories written prior to instruction and after instruction? Are stories written after instruction of a higher overall writing quality when compared to the baseline stories?” (Albertson & Billingsley, 1997). The strategy instruction was operationalised through the teaching of the story grammar C-SPACE mnemonic described in an earlier study by MacArthur, Schwartz and Graham (1991). First the verbal instruction was given to where students were asked to think about their audience and the type of story they 1 SRSD is about helping students to master the ‘higher-level’ cognitive processes involved in composing and is supported through various forms of support (e.g., strategies that provide structure, helping children acquire self-regulation skills) (Graham et al., 1998). Jonathan Ramsay Oranga Primary - One Tree Hill - Auckland
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