The Writing Revolution in an Australian context
As a new year begins, with it is the promise and hope of uninterrupted learning in 2022. One of the findings from lockdown that has brought so much clarity to our writing instruction, is the understanding of what explicit teaching can actually achieve. Despite two years in and out of online learning we have made some important discoveries about the building blocks that boost learning in writing and the tools to measure it.
Explicit Direct Instruction (EDI) is based on theory, brain research and classroom observation and combines a set of instructional practices to produce well-constructed and effectively delivered lessons ‘designed to help students learn more the first time they are taught’. (Good to Great Schools)
The practices we were able to delve into more deeply, within writing included:
retrievals
sequencing learning into small steps
continual checking for understanding
The implementation of learning slides became the framework for embedding consistency across all classrooms. Some great examples of this thinking for educators, is the work being carried out by Ochre Education Australia. Scaffolded lessons using Rosenshine’s Principles and exemplar ‘checks for understanding’ are well worth your time in building Professional Development and aligning lesson design and instruction.
A question I am often asked is - How does The Writing Revolution (TWR) fit the Australian context? How have you manipulated the framework to suit our curriculum?
TWR is much more than ‘because, but & so’ as it is famously known for. Is it a guide, a method, a framework, a set of principles?
This is one of the reasons that Nathaniel Swain and I were so keen to bring an opportunity for The TFE Writing Network to hear directly from a collaboration with TWR. It is something we can clearly see, has caught your attention whether you are utilising it whole school, or just within your own classroom.
For me, it’s been an exploration that led to a great deal of trial and error, and eventually participation in an online TWR course. This has allowed me to configure many ideas into our context. The more interaction my team has with this new learning, the more they begin to embed it in new and innovative ways for instruction and learning.
The exploration I began with is that everything we do is driven through the explicit teaching of the sentence as a building block. This led to an infographic at Templestowe Heights PS (THPS) that mirrored the pillars of Reading known as:
THPS’ 5 Pillars of Writing - these weave in TWR thinking within our context.
The sentence is the building block.
Embed writing in curriculum content as a tool for learning.
(Tiered vocab is important here and I highly recommend Emina McLean’s thinking here)Teach grammar and punctuation in context.
Teach handwriting.
(fluency leads to confident and willing writers and releases cognitive load so students can think with their words)Scaffold planning, note taking, editing, revising and deliberately practice for proficiency.
(Not necessarily mastery, proficiency refers to above the standard in this context)
This embedded shared understanding across all year levels.
Secondly after the opportunity to engage with The Advanced Thinking Through Writing TWR course, here are a few standout learnings for me.
Always anticipate student responses in lesson design. This is useful for your intended outcomes.
Ensure when asking students to share their writing, that they do not get away with ad-libbing!
How often do we see this? Make sure they own their writing responses and they are more likely to self-correct.Keep the principles recursive. This is about spacing out practice – students do not need mastery before they move on, they need to fine tune their writing precision.
In terms of instruction, the THPS team found many things useful, however some key summaries are below.
Use sentence starters with students before gradual release. This releases their cognitive load and brings into focus the skill you want them to practice.
The ‘Please’ test – if you can insert a ‘please’ into the start of a sentence, then it is a command!
Using scrambled sentences are a great way to have students discern some key skills around sentence boundaries, use of proper nouns and the rules for punctuation. Not to mention embedding these in content can encourage use of new or technical vocab.
Some key thoughts – avoid too many function words like ‘the’ and ‘a’ and 5 – 12 words are more than enough. We use these as retrievals and to check for understanding.Give the same sentence stem every time and change the conjunction. Other conjunctions can be used as students develop understanding of because but & so such as ‘after’, ‘before’ and ‘if’.
Note-taking is a hugely influential skill that sets up success as we move from the sentence to the single paragraph outline (SPO). Besides, note-taking is a life skill and teaching it explicitly helps drive rigour through content across all curriculum areas.
I look forward to discussing this further with our friends at TWR in the next TFE Writing Connect where we are hosting this exciting collaboration.
The Australian context in terms of curriculum weaves in bits of sentence work, is quite steeped in genre teaching and therefore the TWR principles can be translated to suit any school. We also have refined our writing progressions to fit with moderating at a sentence level -we do not use this to assess a whole piece of writing but as a measurement of the sentence. Some TFE blog posts go into more detail.
In terms of writing data we are using the comparative judgement (CJ) tool from No More Marking (NMM). This is the only assessment of its kind that provides educators with a writing age for comparison (I have written about this here) and provides a scaled score as a measure of progress. There is really no other data in Australia that supports reliable large scale writing statistics - that is why the NMM data is so useful - it provides immediate information (unlike NAPLAN) for us to see where our students sit relative to each other and other schools . The exemplars then allow us to see what in our teaching we need to improve.
The Writing Revolution are also using No More Marking’s Comparative Judgement as a successful measurement tool across districts in the USA. A global partnership that brings the best practical findings together, for educators of writing is extremely promising.
Instruction + measurement = evidence of visible learning and conversely, of what is not being embedded.
