Composition/Writing...
DEFINITION:
This includes the writing process of drafting and editing, working through redrafting to reach a final published piece. Included in the process may include self, peer, and teacher editing.
Focuses on
- ideas
- organization
- word choice
- sentence fluency
- conventions
- voice
KEY TERMS:
- recurring principle - this is when students write the same thing over and over even though they mean different things (scribbles)
- generative principle - they utilize the same letter repeatedly because they think that is what you do; these letters do not represent sounds to them yet, they just know to reproduce them (letterlike forms) they use a certain set of letters to fill the page
- sign concepts - they understand the ways that certain genres use text. for example they know the way that a list is formatted
- flexibility concept - letters may change to make new letters. they may alter a letter a little bit to make a new one (letterlike forms)
- directionality - this is the way they put the print on the page, which may represent their concept of print and the orientation of words on a page
- negative space - they know to leave "negative space" between words and that not all words are connected
Modes of Writing:
1. expressive - free flowing ideas and feelings; this is easier because they are topics that the student is familiar with and most personal
2. poetic - more of an art medium. there are many forms that a student could try, as easy as rhyming couplets to haikus to sonnets.
3. transactional - giving advice or trying to persuade someone; a great essay is a persuassive piece where the student takes a stance and fights for it
Revision - changing the content of the piece, altering the "meat" of the piece (topic, words, perspective, adding/deleting)
Editing - fixing the mechanical issues with grammar, sentence structure, punctuation; metalanguage issues
1. expressive - free flowing ideas and feelings; this is easier because they are topics that the student is familiar with and most personal
2. poetic - more of an art medium. there are many forms that a student could try, as easy as rhyming couplets to haikus to sonnets.
3. transactional - giving advice or trying to persuade someone; a great essay is a persuassive piece where the student takes a stance and fights for it
Revision - changing the content of the piece, altering the "meat" of the piece (topic, words, perspective, adding/deleting)
Editing - fixing the mechanical issues with grammar, sentence structure, punctuation; metalanguage issues
DEVELOPMENT:
The development occurs in six common stages to writing (HR)>
1. through drawing - students use pictures to explain what they want to say. The picture may not be clear, but it makes perfect sense to them.
2. through scribbling - students may understand the general principles of writing (concepts of print) and how to produce some, such as lists, but they are simply squiggly lines
3. through letterlike forms - some scribbles start to look more like letters and those letters may be put together but not really make a word
4. through familiar units of letter strings - this stage builds on the last, where more letter strings are seen
5. through estimated spelling - this uses even more letters which are associated with some sounds, but the word does not quite make sense. the student has a general understand of alphabetic principles, but has not grasped morphology
6. through conventional writing - after seeing more text and maybe reading some words, they are able to spell conventionally. this may include sounding words out based on their understand of morphology and sound-letter relationship. generally this is expected at the beginning of schooling
A great student's example is show in this developmental chart. It shows all six stages, explaining what is done/what you would see, as well as an example.
Usually the first thing children learn to write is their name, they should have this acquired by/within Kindergarten
Strategies for Early Writing:
Have them trace over properly written letters by someone else
Copy letters written by someone else to show an example, but have the students free-form their own letters based on the prompt
Using no prompt to write their own letters
Have the student produce a list of letters or words they are able to write - this is like an inventory of the student's writing abilities
More Practiced Writing:
invented spelling. letter-name strategy. incorrect use of digraphs. invented spelling of long vowels. invented spelling of short vowels. vowel omissions. transitional spelling. (HR)
Students generally have an easy time composing/telling stories, they often struggle in recording them. It is also easy for children to take a story as their own and not realize it or take bits from other stories or add to their otherwise true story with fiction
Stages of Spelling Development:
prephonemic strategies - putting together letters without thinking about the sounds that they make and not to represent speech sounds
early phonemic - letters are used to represent sounds, but they think that letters can stand for one or two sounds in a word
letter-name - letters represent phonemes because the letter-names make a similar sound as a phoneme.
transitional - words start to look like English, but usually do not have correct spelling
correct - most of the words are spelled right
The development occurs in six common stages to writing (HR)>
1. through drawing - students use pictures to explain what they want to say. The picture may not be clear, but it makes perfect sense to them.
2. through scribbling - students may understand the general principles of writing (concepts of print) and how to produce some, such as lists, but they are simply squiggly lines
3. through letterlike forms - some scribbles start to look more like letters and those letters may be put together but not really make a word
4. through familiar units of letter strings - this stage builds on the last, where more letter strings are seen
5. through estimated spelling - this uses even more letters which are associated with some sounds, but the word does not quite make sense. the student has a general understand of alphabetic principles, but has not grasped morphology
6. through conventional writing - after seeing more text and maybe reading some words, they are able to spell conventionally. this may include sounding words out based on their understand of morphology and sound-letter relationship. generally this is expected at the beginning of schooling
A great student's example is show in this developmental chart. It shows all six stages, explaining what is done/what you would see, as well as an example.
Usually the first thing children learn to write is their name, they should have this acquired by/within Kindergarten
Strategies for Early Writing:
Have them trace over properly written letters by someone else
Copy letters written by someone else to show an example, but have the students free-form their own letters based on the prompt
Using no prompt to write their own letters
Have the student produce a list of letters or words they are able to write - this is like an inventory of the student's writing abilities
More Practiced Writing:
invented spelling. letter-name strategy. incorrect use of digraphs. invented spelling of long vowels. invented spelling of short vowels. vowel omissions. transitional spelling. (HR)
Students generally have an easy time composing/telling stories, they often struggle in recording them. It is also easy for children to take a story as their own and not realize it or take bits from other stories or add to their otherwise true story with fiction
Stages of Spelling Development:
prephonemic strategies - putting together letters without thinking about the sounds that they make and not to represent speech sounds
early phonemic - letters are used to represent sounds, but they think that letters can stand for one or two sounds in a word
letter-name - letters represent phonemes because the letter-names make a similar sound as a phoneme.
transitional - words start to look like English, but usually do not have correct spelling
correct - most of the words are spelled right
ASSESSMENTS:
Rubrics or scoring guides provide a template for teachers to make up their own rubrics for grading/assessing assignments.
This is a collection of writing tasks to give to students and assess them in the execution of different styles.
This assessment gives suggestions for editing/revising a paper. It is geared toward a higher level of development.
MLPP
Rubrics or scoring guides provide a template for teachers to make up their own rubrics for grading/assessing assignments.
This is a collection of writing tasks to give to students and assess them in the execution of different styles.
This assessment gives suggestions for editing/revising a paper. It is geared toward a higher level of development.
MLPP
SECOND LANGUAGE LEARNERS:
SLL often have time with their fluency of writing, they generally learn the alphabetic principles and sound-letter knowledge, but have difficulty spelling words. Then from there, their writing struggles involved the grammatical aspects and using tenses. It is stressed in many SLL textbooks the emphasis of learning edit/revise pieces. By identifying the errors others make, they learn more about writing and how to compose. They still have great stories to tell, they just struggle with the language used.
This website provides sources and activities for ESL students, these could be used for L1's learning.
SLL often have time with their fluency of writing, they generally learn the alphabetic principles and sound-letter knowledge, but have difficulty spelling words. Then from there, their writing struggles involved the grammatical aspects and using tenses. It is stressed in many SLL textbooks the emphasis of learning edit/revise pieces. By identifying the errors others make, they learn more about writing and how to compose. They still have great stories to tell, they just struggle with the language used.
This website provides sources and activities for ESL students, these could be used for L1's learning.