Blogging task #19: Burst and Bubbles

 Kia ora, 

My inquiry question this year is ‘How might  my design for learning and deliberate acts of teaching in writing, support  boys, in particular Māori learners to become effective writers and cause shift in writing.’ 

With 2020 being the year that it has been, it was the perfect opportunity to get creative with my writing design. I was surprised to see how many learners were engaged with learning online and especially with their determination and creativity when it came to writing. 


What happened for my learners: 

The learners attitude towards writing was the biggest change. Learners who previously would not write anything independently were now writing narratives, information reports and mysteries. A survey given to target learners at 3 points in the year, showed an increase in their attitude levels and when asked to find a piece of writing they were proud of and were previously unable to do, were now showing 2 or 3 examples. E-asTTle data, Schooltalk gap analysis and OTJ’s from across the year showed a shift across our whole hub. 3 of my target learners made better than expected progress and are now working within the expected curriculum level for writing. However, this was not the case for all of my target learners with some making only little or no progress. Interesting to note though, many of these learners had very low attendance for online learning. When comparing writing samples that were collected throughout the year, I was pleased to see an increase in use of vocabulary, ideas and fluency. However, there was little or no progress in spelling, punctuation and sentence structure. 


What I did to make this happen: 

I started with engagement. I had a group of kids who hated writing time and it was difficult to get them to participate in any writing workshops. We started a Minecraft club to hook these learners and I am pleased to say that this worked. The learners were hooked, engaged and those learners who refused to write were writing! I also found that Integrating concept learning into writing gave writing more of a purpose! I also designed learning that was hands-on and related to learners' passions and strengths. 


Vocabulary building was something I introduced across reading and writing. In reading, I designed learning that allowed learners to identify unknown vocabulary in their readers and build on it in different contexts. For writing, I tried a number of different vocab building strategies including V-COP - a strategy to uplevel the vocabulary they use, picture word cards, word walls and co-constructed word cards. Out of all of these writing strategies, I found the co-constructed word cards to be the most beneficial as the learners had a sense of ownership over these words. I have seen success in these word banks when we include some Māori words on the word bank.


We also added in a 10 minute handwriting slot to our daily timetable which has supported learners with their writing fluency. 


Lockdown was an amazing opportunity for me to reflect on how feedback is given. We started a padlet for learners to share their learning and give/receive feedback from their peers and teachers. 

Straight away, it was evident that the learners enjoyed giving feedback but we needed to do some learning around constructive feedback. We used the structure of TAG feedback where the learners give 3 points of feedback. 


My writing lessons have been very structured with 2x modeling sessions for higher and lower ability, then targeted skills workshops based on ideas, vocabulary and structure. These workshops were where I was able to collect the most evidence of learners achieving in these areas,  


This brings me to my wonderings… 

  • I wonder if a schoolwide spelling programme could support learners with some of their barriers. 

  • Could collaborative writing tasks be a way to support learners to develop ideas and sentence structures? 

  • How do I ensure I am using workshop time to target all skills including sentence structure, organisation, spelling and punctuation. 

  • Lockdown revealed how important the relationship between whānau and school really is. How can we continue to strengthen this to ensure success for our Māori learners?

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