Instead, Avery encourages teachers to cheer writers on and provide feedback as they practice, experiment, and talk about their writing. Gentry emphasizes the importance of knowing the writing capabilities and expectations of each phase, knowing the target methods to help focus the writer, and utilizing specific instructional methods with specified goals to help the child move to the next phase. Avery also reminds educators that the key element to keep in mind is to be a patient and authentic listener during writing conferences, so that the writers have an opportunity to think and consider possibilities for their writing.
The social studies curriculum offers one rich context for students to write frequently and for different purposes. Writing is functiona ;it enables students to organize or express what they have learned.
Because a major goal of social studies instruction is to help children examine information in the way social scientists do, writing about what they learn should be a very important part of the curriculum.
A second form of writing commonly observed in elementary social studies classrooms is expressive writing.
They need to learn ways to make ideas grow from a background of topics they have been studying. It is relaxed and intimate. It reveals the writer and verbalizes his or her consciousness Expressive writing is frequently characterized as thinking aloud on paper.
The discoveries unearthed while engaged in social studies themes and topics can provide a rich content background for creative writing. Proett and Gill emphasize that the creative process is comprised of two major considerations: Seen in one way, [the writing process] is the flowing of words onto the page, easily, naturally, rapidly.
But it is also a time of making decisions, of choosing what to tell and what to leave out In some ways, these functions even seem contradictory; the first needs to be fluid and fast while the other calls for deliberation and reason.
The teaching task is to help the writer coordinate these two functions. The remainder of this article describes the use of cinquain in a fourth-grade thematic unit on the Southwestern United States.
Cinquains on the Life of a Vaquera In this unit on the Southwest, the first stage of the writing process was exploring the topic. To help students begin, the teacher carefully prepared a variety of fact-finding experiences. The emphasis of the unit was on the land and its people, and one section dealt with early Spanish settlers and life on their ranchos large cattle ranches.
The focus of learning was on vaqueras female cattle workers 11 and vaqueros male cattle workersexpert riders who spent most of their day on horseback rounding up cattle.
In fact, there are many cinquain patterns; the one used for this activity appears in Figure 1 and consists of: One group focused on words that describe vaqueras; another group generated action doing words related to vaqueras; and a third group listed things associated with these cattle workers.
After ten minutes or so of enthusiastic deliberation, each group chose a representative to place its word inventory on a large sheet of chart paper.
5 Writing Across the Curriculum Bazerman, Charles and David R. Russell, eds. Landmark Essays on Writing Across the Curriculum. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, Britton, James, et al. The Development of Writing Abilities (). (the most frequently cited are James Britton and Janet Emig) teachers found research that convincingly suggested that writing was not merely a transparent medium for the communication of preconceived ideas, but rather was a unique form of learning in itself. As is the case for reading and writing, the complex, active process of listening requires prior knowledge, attention and intentional cognitive activity before, during and after listening.
The contents of the charts were as follows: Another lively discussion ensued as children argued strongly for their personal choices of words for the poem.
The results of the group effort are shown in Figure 2.Buy Development of Writing Abilities: Ages (Schools Council Research Studies) by James Britton, etc. (ISBN: ) from Amazon's Book Store. Everyday low prices and free delivery on eligible timberdesignmag.com: James Britton, etc.
The missionary and inevitably disappointed zeal with which the writing-about-literature graduate students approached their task led in the early 70s through the mid 80s to a writing -about-self pedagogy, inherited by a misreading of James Britton et al.’s () The Development of Writing Abilities ().2 The expressivist tradition focused.
The process begins with what James Britton terms "expressive" writing (, ). During this phase, the writer is primarily trying to explore ideas and find a focus.
During facilitate both cognitive development and the development of writing abilities. Unfortunately, it is often neglected in favor. James Nimmo Britton (18 May – 29 February ) was an influential British educator at the Institute of Education, University of London, whose theory of language and learning helped guide research in school writing, while shaping the progressive teaching of language, writing, and literature.
James Britton, edited by Gordon M.
Pradl, presents articles and speeches spanning to on Britton's theories of language and behavior, the basis of his Language and Learning () and of The Development of Writing Abilities, (). Here the teacher can find clear discussions of Britton's key terms, such as the.
5 Writing Across the Curriculum Bazerman, Charles and David R. Russell, eds. Landmark Essays on Writing Across the Curriculum. Davis, CA: Hermagoras Press, Britton, James, et al. The Development of Writing Abilities ().