Acquisition - Writing

Acquisition - Writing

1. Piaget

   • Cognitive constructivist approach.
     • A child is born with certain genetic traits and as he/she develops interactions with the environment to construct his/her own intelligence.
       • The constructivist viewpoint rests on the assumption that children mentally construct knowledge through reflection on their experiences.
         • Focus on learners' active participation in constructing meaning rather than passive gaining of reading and composition skills.
           • Knowledge is acquired by learners in the process of their self-initiated inquiries and personal investigations.
     • Progressive Model
       • Student is responsible for their learning.
       • Often seen as a workshop type setting as, teachers provide an environment full of opportunities and materials with which students may choose to engage.

2. The National Literacy Strategy

   • The literacy strategy was marked by the insistence on a daily "literacy hour" - which became a near-universal feature of primary school mornings.
     • The Structure of Literacy Hour:
       • 30 minutes of class teaching.
         • 20 minutes of group and independent work.
           • 10 minutes of whole class review, reflection and consolidation
         • 15 minutes of class working on a shared text.
           • 15 minutes of word level or sentence level work.
   • By 2002 80% of 11 year olds should reach the standard expected for their age in English (i.e. Level 4) in the Key Stage 2 National Curriculum tests.
   • The objectives focus on three broad dimensions of literacy:
     • Word level work (phonics, spelling and vocabulary, including handwriting).
     • Sentence level work (grammar and punctuation).
     • Text level work (comprehension and composition).

3. Vygotsky

   • Social constructivist approch.
     • Adults such as parents and teachers are conduits for the tools of the culture, including language. The tools the culture provides a child include cultural history, social context and language. Today they also include electronic forms of information access.
       • The culture gives the children the cognitive tools needed for development.
   • There are four principles that are applied in any Vygotskian classroom:
     • Learning and development in a social, collaborative activity.
     • School learning should occur in a meaningful context and not be separated from learning and knowledge children develop in the 'real world'.
     • Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD)
       • Learning occurs in this cognitive region, which lies just beyond what the child can do alone. Anything that the chid can learn with the assistance and support of a teacher, peers and the instructional environment is said to lie within the ZPD.
         • A child's new capacities can only be developed in the ZPD through collaboration in actual, concrete, situated activities with an adult or more capable peer.
         • Usually the child is taught at the top of their ZPD, so they find the activity challenging to an extent and remain focused
       • Zone of Actual Development (ZAD)
         • What the child can do alone and unassitsed is a task that lies within what Vygotsky calls the zone of actual development. When a teacher assigns a task and the students are able to do it, the task is within the ZAD. They have already been taught and have mastered the skills involved in that task.
     • Out-of-school experiences should be related to the child's school experience.
   • Scaffolding
     • A teacher will lend various levels of assistance over various iterations of task completion. The goal is to allow the students to do as much as they can on their own, and then to intervene and provide assistance when it is needed so that the task can be successfully completed.

4. Models of Teaching

   • The Genre Approach (Functional Model)
     • Genre refers to abstract, socially recognised ways of using language. It is based on the assumption that the features of a similar group of texts depend on the social context of their creation and use, and that those features can be described in a way that relates a text to others like it and to the choices and constraints acting on text producers.
       • Every successful text will display the writer's awareness of its context and the readers who form part of the context (Kress).
     • Overlapping schools of genre theory:
       • The New Rhetoric approach - the focus here is mainly on the rhetorical contexts in which genres are employed rather than detailed analysis of text elements. It studies genre as the motivated, functional relationship between text type and rhetorical situation (Coe 2002).
       • The ESP approach - is more linguistic in orientation and sees genre as a class of structured communicative events employed by specific discourse communities who's members share broad social purposes (Swales 1990) These help shape the way it is structured and the choices of content and style it makes available (Johns 1997).
       • Hallidays (1994) Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) - Known in the US as 'Sydney School', this model of genres stressed the purposeful, interactive and sequential character of different genres and the ways language is systematically linked to context through patterns of lexico-grammatical and rhetorical features (Christie & Matain 1997).
       • While these approaches are united by a common attempt to describe and explain regularities of purpose, form and situated social action, they clearly differ in the emphasis they give to text or context, the research methods they employ and the types of pedagogies they encourage (Hyland 2002).
         • Genre theory seeks to understand the ways individuals use language to orient to and interpret particular communicative situations, and employ this knowledge for literacy education.
     • Mainly concerned on teaching particular genres the students need control of in order to succeed in particular situations.
     • Langauge is functional; that is, it is through language that we achieve certain goals. Language is also occurring in particular cultural and social contexts, and thus, cannot be understood outside its context. Particular genres are used to fulfil particular social functions in particular contexts.
     • Hunston & Thompson (2001) - Their research attempted to show how clusters of register, style, lexis and other features reflect the different personal and institutional purposes of writers, the different assumptions they make about their audience and the different kinds of interactions they create with their readers.
   • The Product Approach (Linear Model)
     • Concerned with the final result of the writing process - focuses its study on model texts in order to make students aware of the text features.
       • The model text is always taken as a staring point.
         • What the model does not demonstrate is how the original writer arrived at that particular product. There is no indication of process.
           • Can lead to serious 'writing blocks' (Halsted 1975)
           • 'Sterile' and unimaginative pieces of work (Mahon 1992)
         • A model text gives clear idea about the organisation of words and sentences. Imitation is one efficient way among others through which we can learn, and under some particular circumstances there is no other way except imitation to communicate some structures.
       • Structures of grammar, content, sentences and organisation, and rhetorical patterns.
         • Hedge (1988) defines this approach as an approach to writing which examines 'the features of written texts'. This may include skills of 'getting the grammar right, having a range of vocabulary, punctuating meaningfully and using the conventions of layout correctly.
         • Hyland (2003) Indicates that writing, in this approach, may be looked upon as a logical and well-organised placement of words, clauses and sentences according to rules of a language. The way of developing ones writing skills, is through manipulating and imitating a given text through exercises such as filling the blanks, completing of sentences, transforming of tenses or personal pronouns and other activities.
       • Writing is a mastery of grammar rules and that writing can be taught separately from context, audience and purpose.
     • It is clear that when such approach is adopted it leads to accuracy. With the production of neat, grammatically correct pieces of writing (Mohon 1992).
     • Emphasis was on grammatical correctness and adherence to given models or guidelines (White 1988).
     • Product-based approaches view writing as being the knowledge of the structure of language, and the string development as being the result of the imitation of the stimulus (i.e. texts) provided by the teacher (Badger & White (2000); Hyland (2003))
     • Pincas (1984) Writing is primarily about linguistic knowledge, with attention focused on the appropriate use of vocabulary, syntax and cohesive devices. She identifies four stages in this approach: familiarisation, controlled writing, guided writing and free writing. The teacher grades the composition and makes some comments on the form rather than on content.
     • Teacher-centred.
     • Teachers assigned papers, graded then and then handed them back.
   • The Process Orientated Approach (Development Model)
     • This process was not universally accepted by teachers with writers such as Reid (1984).
     • Writing is a non-linear, exploratory and generative development process whereby writers discover and reformulate their ideas as they attempt to approximate meaning (Zamel 1983).
     • Stressing writing as a development process and de-emphisising writing as a product.
       • Setting goals, generating ideas, organising information, selecting appropriate language, drafting, revising, writing, editing and publishing.
         • Requires that teachers give students greater responsibility for their own learning. Students make decisions about genre and choice of topic, and collaborate as they write.
           • He/she must always keep in mind that it is possible to improve his/her writing; and to do so, he/she needs to go through different stages like finding new ideas, new words or new sentences, and revising before writing.
       • Hayes and Flower's (1980) Three sub processes: Planing (generating ideas, organisation and goal setting), translating (plans into texts) and reviewing (reading and editing components). The objective of the process approach is to make the student aware of, and gain control over, the cognitive strategies involved in writing.
         • Two kinds of information this process relies on: a representation of the task environment, which consisted of the writing assignment and the text produced so far; and knowledge stored in long-term memory, which consisted of such things as topic knowledge, a model of the audience, the writing plan, rules for grammar production and knowledge of text standards.
         • Concentration of the cognitive processes rather than stages in the writing process.
           • No total consent on the definite number of stages within in the writing process.
             • Scholars recognise that the following are the most recursive ones:
               • Pre-writing - Drawing, talking, reading, listening to recordings, discussion, role playing, interviews, problem solving and decision making activities, research etc.
               • Drafting
               • Revising - additions and deletions; changes in syntax, sentence structure and organisation; or starting over completely.
               • Editing - attention given to mechanics such as spelling, punctuation, grammar and handwriting, also minor lexical and syntactic changes.
               • Publishing - delivery of the writing to its intended audience.
     • The major aim of the process approach is to train students how to generate ideas for writing, plan these ideas, take into account the type of audience, draft and redraft in order to produce a final written paper that is likely to communicate their own ideas.
       • Writing becomes a process of discovery for the students as they discover new ideas and new language forms to express them (Raimes 1983)
         • Learning to write is seen as a development process that helps students write as professional authors do, choosing their own topics and genres and writing from their own experiences or observations (Raimes)
     • Encourages students to write as much as possible without worrying about mistakes. Thus, focus is on creativity and fluency rather than accuracy.
     • People don't just write, they write to accomplish different purposes in different contexts and this involves variations in the ways they use language, not universal rules (Halliday 1994).