'Who could it be now'

As the Police sung it!  I see my focus students as the following children who all have ideas and are willing writers, but very unmotivated or just unsure about applying learning to independent writing and being able to edit or be self aware of the need to edit.

Wade
Christopher
Jamie
Kaleb 
Ryan 
Alexus
Sam D


Why them?

All of these students are willing writers and capable of participating and contributing to writing in groups and independently, but when it comes to applying skills and learning independent of the teacher they don't.

What could the inquiry be about?

• Boys motivation, sporty kids motivation
• understanding where to next
• ownership of where to next
• planning vs not
• sharing unpacking
• honesty about levels (home truths)
• exemplars
• skills sessions vs genre teaching

• 
  

What is going on for my Learners? How do I know?

Some attitudes or behaviours that I have seen. 

• Mostly Interested and excited about sharing their ideas though writing and oral mediums.
• Half often have ideas to write about, other half often don't.
• They all enjoy have models and prompts to write about and follow.
• Some admit to being unsure of how to start, a lot are in the same boat but wont admit it.
• Most feel they are finished after their first draft. I'm done I don't need to edit. Experience tells me that they don't know how to edit!
• Little care for BEST. They don't see their mistakes. They read in correct structures and punctuation but don't fix it up.
• Most wont freely admit to being confused in front of their peers. Those that are willing to say that they are confused, are the more capable writers. They take charge of their learning more than the others.
• Boys minds work faster than they can type or write, so their ideas flow out in their heads but they can't keep up so ideas get missed, lost or jumbled.
• No matter how kid speak I try and make success criteria and learning intentions, I still manage to confuse the kids.
• They can recite success criteria and LO's but don't know what success looks like.
• Me. "What is your LI?" Child explains it perfectly. Me. "so why have you not shown it or thought about it in your independent writing?" Child shrugs shoulders. "I don't know. I just didn't think about it when I was typing." Me. "Why didn't you add detail after you had finished?" Child. "I had finished."
• Lack of engagement with LO's and success criteria unless teacher driven.
• No interest in planning.

Next step. Interviews/Questionnaires.

Scanning

Over the past month we have begun assessing our students writing using the e-asttle tool. Below are some of the trends and common next steps for the writers I teach.

Spiral of Inquiry

In 2016 at David Street School, we have embarked on a journey of discovery about our students, our pedagogy and how we teach in relation to the core curriculum area of Writing. The inquiry tool we will be using is the Spiral of Inquiry which looks like this.

The idea is that we investigate into our students learning in writing and look for their beliefs, behaviours and outcomes while learning how to write. From this we develop hunches about key points of actionable changes to the way they learn and we teach. The onus is then on ourselves as teachers to improve and adapt to hopefully make a difference to their learning to accelerate growth.

The thing I like most about any inquiry model is that taking a risk is good and mistakes are acceptable. The important thing is that the students needs are at the heart of this inquiry cycle.