Planning
for Writing
The basis of the
readings, videos and power point presentations provided has shown that students
need to go through the writing process in order to be able to begin writing.
These readings have informed me that students need to be made aware that before
they begin writing strategies such as brainstorming and graphic organizers need
to be made use throughout all of the stages of the writing process which begins
at the pre-writing stage and ends at the publishing stage in order to develop a
well-organized essay. These reading were very informative, as I was aware of
the writing process but gained some additional information on the strategies
which can be implemented before and during the pre-writing stage in order for
students to be able to develop their ideas.
As a novice teacher, I
have never thought of the brainstorming technique as which would prove to be
useful in the classroom. Based on the readings, I have realized that it a
technique would prove to be very useful in the classroom and one that if
utilized correctly will be effective in teaching English in the classroom. Brainstorming
is also a valuable tool for students to learn. There are many effective
strategies in brainstorming but there are a few which really appealed to me.
Some Effective
Strategies for Brainstorming which got me interested were:
Free-writing:
which involves students writing about any particular topic of their choice
which interests them without having to worry about their spelling or
grammatical errors. This strategy allows students to be able to write what they
choose and to write their ideas and views as it comes to them. There is no
structure to free-writing as students are able to write their ideas as they
think of them. This technique appealed to me as the aim of it is not to write a
structured essay but to just write and not stop writing. I believe that this
strategy will help students in the classroom to be encouraged to write as they
are able to choose their own topic and “write freely”.
Listing:
which allows students to simply list their ideas about a topic which they can
use when they begin writing. This
strategy is useful as students can list topics or ideas which interest them and
they would want to write about instead of the teacher providing a topic which
may not interest the students.
Clustering:
this strategy is another way of allowing students to brainstorm ideas as they
are able to list ideas and then to group them in a more organized way. This
will help in brainstorming as the students are able to have some form of
organization in their ideas.
I also recognized that
in order for brainstorming to be effective in the class the teacher needs to be
able to be enthusiastic about ideas so that students can be enthusiastic about
the ideas in the class. The teacher also needs to make the brainstorming activity
fun and exciting so that the students do not view the process as un-necessary
and may be unwilling to take part in the process. The teacher also need to re-read
students ideas so that the students realize that they ideas are important so
that they will be more willing to provide ideas and opinions during the class.
Students will be motivated to generate more ideas when this is done.
Writing is a complex
process and the use of various strategies such as the graphic organizer can be
used to help students to organize ideas and improve their writing. There are
various types of Graphic Organizers such as the five W’s and an H Graphic
Organizer and also the KWL Graphic Organizer which can be used to help students
organize their ideas. The information read stated that Graphic Organizers can
be used in the pre-writing stage in order to organize ideas as well as a
revising tool in the pre-writing process. This information was beneficial to me
as it showed that students are able to use graphic organizers to revise as they
are better able to organize their information.
I was not aware
of the strategy by (Graham, Harris, MacArthur, & Schwartz, 1991; Harris
& Graham,
1996) who developed an approach referred to as the self-regulated strategy
development (SRSD) model. This approach is a cognitive strategy instruction in
that students learn task-specific strategies for composing, such as planning
and revising, and this learning is scaffolded to help them master the use of
the strategies. Self-regulatory procedures typically include goal setting,
self-instructions, and self-monitoring.
In order to use
the SRSD model, Planning, and the ability to manage the composing process are especially
important skills for novice writers to learn. This is important as this will
allow teachers to use planning to teach students with learning disabilities to
learn language conventions.
The information
gained will impact my teaching of the English language as I have gained new
information on the strategies and ways in which I can teach writing to my
students. As a novice teacher, I will encourage my students to place emphasis
on the writing process and engage my students in brainstorming activities so
that they are able to freely list their ideas. I will also encourage
free-writing in the class so that I am able to have students view writing as a
fun process and not a task where they are provided with topics to write about.
I will provide students with the opportunity to choose their own topics to
write about that may encourage writing freely in the class.
I would also encourage
that as English teachers we should always seek new ways and information to
improve the teaching of English as most students view it as a difficult topic
and also a boring subject. We should find new ways to make the teaching of
English exciting and fun in the classroom so that students can be active
participants in the class by the use of various strategies in the classroom such
as role-playing and discussions.
