Gloria V. Burke, Contributor
DISCUSSIONS BETWEEN teachers and parents concerning children's academic performance are frequently based on how well or how poorly the children are reading. In situations where children read well, they are considered 'bright'. This approach to children's academic performance undermines the importance of speaking and writing as expressive language. Such scant regard for writing explains why when children demonstrate below average performance, in writing examinations such as the CXC (Caribbean Council Examinations), GSAT (Grade Six Achievement Test) and the Grade Four Literacy Test, the universal comment is, "They are illiterate", and the inability to read emphasised.
The Minott Report (2004), in discussing the CXC results isolates difficulty in comprehension as a problem. This helps to support the claim that little attention is paid to writing as an essential aspect of literacy and demonstrates that when discussing examination results, the tendency is to forget that candidates 'write' examinations.
Educators, parents, and employers should be concerned about the writing skills that children acquire at each cycle of education, and that they express themselves well in exams and later at the workplace. Hence, the focus of this discussion is to present ideas that can be used to assist children whose written productions need improvement.
Writing is an avenue through which a child may employ higher order level thinking skills such as application, analysis, synthesis and evaluation. Shared writing, where students and teachers collaborate, allows students to hone their comprehension skills. All types of writing provide qualitative and quantitative data on which teachers and examiners base their decision to 'pass' or 'fail' students. Writing embraces cognitive stylistic and linguistic components. Its cognitive component requires logical, coherent, and sequenced written production. Its linguistic component is based on semantic structures and syntax, diction, tense, and rules of concord, and its stylistic component refers to use of accepted fashions or rules on which punctuation and capitalisation are based.
PROCESS WRITING
Writing as compositions may be presented in narrative, descriptive, argumentative, and expository forms. However, content, style purpose, tone, structure and learning outcomes may differ from level to level, and in terms of age appropriateness. Notwithstanding, process writing should be encouraged from the early years of schooling. Process writing consists of :
1) Pre-writing where the student jots down notes, words, phrases and ideas; 2) Composition or the first draft, is where the student formulates, organises, shapes and develops his/her ideas, while teacher facilitates, informs, advises, encourages and instructs, and 3) Post-writing, which includes editing and revising should continue until the content is in coherent language, with accurate usage, punctuation, and correct spelling. In process writing, the student writes for a variety of audiences: self, trusted adults, peer group, the teacher, the examiner and a general readership.
The performance of students in schools, which fall below average, can be improved if children are given daily and purposeful opportunity to write. Improvement is enhanced if the teacher writes with the children functioning as 'teacher as writer', responding to what the children write, providing them with exemplars while motivating them to write in a non-threatening atmosphere, and using a variety of tools and materials, improvised or otherwise.
PERSONAL AND IMAGINATIVE WRITING
In order to help children to write effectively, learning outcomes must be established from the early years. For example, at the Grades 1-6 level, the child be taught imaginative and personal writing. Personal and imaginative writing require the child to recount personal experiences while adhering to proper use of vocabulary and sequence of events. Stories, poems, diaries and journals feature in this form of writing.
At the Grade 1-6 level, the child should begin to write for a specific audience and for a specific purpose. S/he should be guided into using appropriate structures and vocabulary, to make charts, make lists, plan and do webbing for the piece of writing that is to be done. Here, writing from a personal viewpoint, expressing thoughts, feelings, and experiences with focus on opinion and an aim to persuade the reader is introduced. Next, the child is ready to face the challenge of writing prose, verse, and scripts, using literary conventions such as dialogue, mood, suspense, humor, and figurative language.
When personal writing is mastered, the child should move on to functional writing which will prepare him/her for writing in the content area. Functional writing involves recording information and conducting investigations. The writer may use cards, statements and lists to convey a story, write on a topic, or write a message. S/he may record a series of events or learning activities in which s/he participated, using appropriate sequence, or s/he may write reports, letters, take notes or make charts. Functional writing allows the child to use writing as a strategy for learning. It is an impetus for writing for someone else to read, and for the child to view writing as a meaningful activity, which allows for self-expression.
EDITING AND REVISING
Grade 1-6 is not too early for the child to learn to edit and revise his/her written work. Thus, introduction of conventions with revising and editing, to 'fix' or 'tidy up' the piece of writing for publication, should also be introduced at this stage.
In editing and revising, attention is paid to clarity in expression, style, tone and structure, and the child is taught to examine a piece of work for effectiveness and to make appropriate use of structure, vocabulary, spelling, and conventional grammar. Editing allows the child to delete irrelevant material and repetition or remove 'waffling'. Structure helps with logical placement of ideas. Vocabulary and sentence structure are examined to control sentence and paragraph length. The child must also ensure that the material matches the ability of the reader or audience, and that tone is maintained so that s/he does not slip from formal to informal writing or vice versa.
From Grade 3-6, the child should be introduced to the use of writing conventions. and must be referred to a variety of sentence structures. S/he should be equipped to use standard spelling with confidence, use capitals, periods and question marks, as well as use linking words such as 'but', 'then' and 'so'. S/he should be able to punctuate sentences using commas and quotation marks, and to demonstrate a good knowledge of the use of noun, pronoun, verb, and adverb. At this level, the child as writer should be taught to use charts, dictionaries and word banks, databases, thesauri, word lists and ideas of peers and teacher, appropriately.
At the Grade 7- 9 level, the child should be able to write for a specific purpose and audience. S/he should be able to plan, analyse and evaluate his/her own written work independently, or use suggestions provided by the teacher and peers. When s/he edits a piece of writing it should focus on flow of ideas and expression, transition, sequence and style. S/he should be ready to develop techniques in preparing a draft, by selecting the form, audience, style, and to consider viewpoint and timing.
She should be able to map out ideas, and plan the structure of what is to be written so as to ensure that relevant ideas are included. Planning wards off panic when the child is pressed for time. In examination situations where time runs out and the student fails to complete an answer, planning notes can inform an examiner concerning what the student intended to include in the answer. This could prove advantageous for the student.
Writing in Grades 10-12, is intended to suit personal, academic and workplace situations. Thus, the growth of the student as a confident writer and researcher, who can communicate effectively, using a wide range of forms and styles is promoted. Short stories, essays, critiques, reports, poetry, articles, summaries, opinions, reviews, precis, scripts, instructions, procedures, minutes, resume, and advertisements should be included in the students' writing, and daily writing in one or more of these forms and genre should be encouraged. Practice is necessary if the student is to become an effective writer to suit the examination context, or to meet the needs of employers. At this level of education the child should possess good research skills, and be able to use a range of print and primary and secondary electronic sources to gather and analyse information.
The suggested learning outcomes for writing if followed at all levels of schooling, should assist students to become effective writers having a purpose and saying something of consequence to a specific audience. However, it must be admitted that some words in English are difficult to master, for spelling them lacks rationality and consistency, and such words may present difficulty for some students. Despite this, or other problems, it is fair to say that writing introduces the reader to the persona of the writer, and this is the case in the CXC and any other exam.
In conclusion, writing needs to be better emphasised in schools. Children need assistance to become effective writers so as to do well in their written examinations and otherwise. Teachers must provide appropriate learning opportunities to meet this need. However, teachers need adequate support, effective supervision and appropriate training in order to teach the writing process seriously across the curriculum.
Dr. Gloria V. Burke is a lecturer in educational administration in the Dept. of Educational Studies, UWI, Mona
