How do we develop our ideas?

The focus for my inquiry is to improve my students confidence by helping them to develop their ideas when writing.

So how do I do this?

Through discussions with Ann Grady, Sandy Harrop and my team, the importance of linking reading and writing has jumped out. If the students have no knowledge of a topic how can I expect them to have ideas to write about.

I/we will:

• Build our knowledge: Incorporating a second teaching session for my target group after lunch we will read about the topic. Mining for example.
• The students will create a word bank from this reading to use when they write.
• We will create a shared plan for writing using the word bank.

How did it go?

• The boys are writing more and better quality with a shared plan to follow.
• when a shared plan is created the boys feed back that they better understood what to write about and how to structure it.
• The boys liked not writing for writing. They loved reading about what they would be writing about.
• Using word bank - boys feedback is they like it for ideas and words - when they see the words it reminds them of different ideas that they can use.
• The boys feel like they know what to write about when reading about a topic precedes the writing.

Next steps:

• So I will continue to preload knowledge by reading before writing.
• Continue creating word banks for the boys to use.
• Begin scaffolding the boys into planning for themselves and creating the word banks for themselves.

A side note:

• I am still thinking genre with writing and often the purpose for writing is forced from the writing and the boys don't always engage with what they are asked to do because of this.