|
|
| Speaking for writing Developing the spoken language to improve the quality of a child’s written work.
"Come on, get started on your writing!" says the teacher...but without having a creative dialogue with the children first! NO! .......Please teacher, NO! Too many teachers are too keen to set a writing task with little interactive speaking, and then expect uninspired children to put pen to paper with a: "Get on with it!" "Why haven't you started yet?" "This has got to be finished before break!" These teachers seem to want to assess the success of the written work, by the amount of words that are written on paper in the shortest possible time! That is definitely not the yard stick to use for accelerating literacy skills! 
"There's yards of it, but somehow it still doesn't sound very good!"
Quality not quantity. A successful writing lesson is one that stimulates improved quality of writing, not necessarily improved quantity! We don’t weigh the work in order to judge the success of the writing lesson!
Then how do we judge a successful writing lesson? We look for: quality of originality quality of imagination quality of vocabulary quality of sentence construction
We look for the Wow Factor”! We are more likely to achieve this, when the class spends a great amount of time speaking about the writing task first. This speaking could be done in any creative way and does not necessarily have to be done from classroom seats! Have them sitting round you in a book nook or cosy corner so they can exchange ideas.... or do some drama,.... or take them out into the woods, along the shore, into town, into the vegetable market. Give lots of praise to the speakers and the good listeners,,,as well as giving opportunities for quieter children to offer their views and be praised too. Offer interesting ideas for the children to write about! Let them choose what they would like to write about! Have you never overheard the child who says he does not like school holidays and when asked why replies, "Because, when you get back to school you have to write about it!" He deserves a better teacher!
Activities where speaking can promote good quality writing Reported writing Give the children an imaginary microphone and get them to describe, through speech,their journey to school, or to a village or about a town incident. Then they would be ready to write a report about it maybe like a newspaper report 
Descriptive writing Take pupils outside to look at the view, to listen to the rain, to stand under the spreading boughs of a flamboyant tree, anything so that they can, through speaking, exchange thoughts and ideas and then take those visual and auditory memories back into the classroom ready to use in written work. Imagine the different quality of written work from the child who is just told to write about a flamboyant tree, and the child who has stood out under it, looked at its shapes and colours, heard the rattle of the seed pods and seen the dappling on the ground below, as the sun shines through the branches...and expressed all this in the spoken word before starting to write. This is how you get the Wow factor. Quality writing often depends on experience and then speech, well before the pen.... especially in young writers! Imaginative writing Give them the theme, A spaceship that looks like a cherry pie. Get 2 or 3 of them to stand on it and imagine the journey and the landing on another planet. Get them, through speech, to imagine the strange person they see on the planet.Get one of the children to act that imaginary strange person and get the others to describe him. This would be great fun and the children will love to describe the stranger in spoken and then written words..and then to read their ideas to the class and publish their writing and drawing on the wall or in a class book. (You can tell I am already there in that classroom but on another planet too!) Character study writing Make some brown paper bag puppets, or draw a face on an old wooden spoon and speak about what sort of person the puppet is. Play writing ... Or create a dialogue with the puppets. Then, get the children to work in groups and write the dialogue. In this way, through their exchanged conversations and discussion of the exact words they want to include, they are having opportunities to expand their own spoken language before writing it, and their motivation and the quality of the written work produced will be improved. "How-to" writing Invite a child to bring in items about his or her hobby and to talk about it, prior to writing a how to book for the Book Corner. Letter writing Talk about someone who would like to receive a letter and discuss what that person would like to read about in such a letter, before writing it. Post the letter if you can (even if it is to another child in the school) and hope for a reply. 
Poster writing Discuss a school or local event, or an imaginary one from your theme topic and then get drawing and designing and writing. This list could go on and on! It all works wonderfully as long as you have lots of interactive talking first!
"Scribing". A technique to promote creativity There is another way where speaking can promote good quality writing...that is when the teacher, or another person scribes for the "writer". I learned about this technique in this wonderful book. "I Am a Pencil", by Sam Swope ISBN 0-8050-7851-7 The child, either sitting and thinking, or actually doing some other activity, speaks ideas whilst someone writes... The scribe does not suggest words, does not prompt, just waits for the creativity. And the more children do it, the greater the Wow! factor! You can do this with their prose or their poetry. For example, you scribe their first poetic thoughts, they look over your shoulder, start to see that poetry is patterns of words and they go! Examples of scribed poetry This poem was dictated to me jerkily, line after line, whilst the teenage poet busily painted. Making new things makes me feel special Art is special. Sometimes it's easy, sometimes it's hard Because you have to learn. Art gives a picture. It's one in a million. It's also a vision. It takes time, but in the end you feel full of delight, Excited, Cheerful, Wonderful, Proud, Because YOU did it! _________________________________________________ And another teenage painter started a rap as he smiled and rhythmically stroked the brush across the paper. Blend dee colours, Use dee brush, Explain wiv dee paint. 'Coz it'z bedder-dun school, marn! _________________________________________________ Another teenage artist was more instructional.  Art, keep it simple, extend it, expand the idea, Put in the details, do it different, Blend the colours, not just one, There are different colours in say, red It's all so wonderful in a colourful way Use the brush in many ways, Brush this way for one effect Brush this way for another. Use strategies in painting You can have mistakes and it can still be good. Accidents can lead your imagination! _________________________________________________ The next teenager was woodcarving, and thinking about my suggestion of being positive. He dictated his poem slowly, bit by bit.  To change the world is not going to be easy. To change child abuse to child respect To change drug taking to better activities, To change killing to caring, To change negative ways to positive ways. But we can in peace, in unity and together, Organise ourselves to be closer to God. And then the world would be a better place. _________________________________________________ And the next teenager was chewing gum! Chump chump, chew chew Colourful goodness! You can pop it and suck it Blow it and play with it But The after effects can lead to sticky disasters! Under your shoe or a church pew And anywhere else you might find it! _________________________________________________ This young lady took the idea or poetry being a list of ideas and went away to a quiet spot and returned with this. She did not need a scribe this time! Art is the way love meets sadness And doubt meets hope. It's like emancipation Free, relieving, colourful, No limitations, Free choice of colour. _________________________________________________ I said "Wow! Wow! Wow!" to all of these and to the poets! Parent and teachers said "Wow!" too when the students performed them at The Old Mill in Roseau, Dominica!
Click here for more on Poetry writing | |
|