From Joint Construction to Shared Pen to Independent Writing
The following extract comes from PETAA book Teaching the Language of Climate Change Science, written by Julie Hayes and Bronwyn Parkin, published in 2021.
Once a paragraph has been written together and then read both together and independently, there are several options for the next pedagogic step, and none of them entails copying from the board. In all cases, the jointly constructed text should not be visible. Students have to work from the class or individual notes. The options are as follows:
A class text The jointly constructed paragraphs accumulate as drafts and are finally made into a class text, as a big book or, in older classes, as a text to be used for further reading activities.
Shared pen Instead of the teacher scribing, the strategy of ‘shared pen’ can be very effective, particularly in the Early Years.
- The teacher works with a small group of students to write a sentence together.
- Together they work out what the sentence is going to say.
- They count the words and each child has a turn at writing a word, supported by the teacher and other students, if necessary, to work out the spelling.
- After each word, the group does a run-up; reading what they’ve written so far, so they don’t forget what to write next.
- When they’ve written and read the sentence (15 minutes at the most), the group moves to another activity and the next group carries on the writing. They read what the previous group wrote and continue.
A grammar lesson Before students proceed to more independent writing, it is useful to draw their attention to the grammatical features of the paragraph that has been jointly constructed. These features might include:
- the role of the topic sentence in the paragraph
- the structure of a paragraph
- sentence structure, including complex sentences and the use of conjunctions
- the role of nominalisations and passive voice
- the absence of personal pronouns.
These grammatical features in scientific texts are fairly consistent, but can be a challenge to many teachers. A text analysis has been done for each focus text in this book, highlighting important language and grammatical resources in each text. These can be downloaded from the PETAA website (www.petaa.edu.au/Climate-ChangeScience-Extras).
For teachers who are prepared to have a go at teaching grammar for the first time, begin with the bits you’re confident about, and commit to learning more, either through the many teacher support resources now available (Derewianka 2020a; Derewianka and Jones 2016; Humphrey and Vale 2020), or by accessing a grammar course (see the PETAA website).
Students who are consciously making decisions about the grammar that they choose have far more control over their writing than students who are writing intuitively.
Supported group writing For some students, the leap from jointly constructed text to independent writing is a bridge too far. The teacher continues to support these students by providing a template with the text headings and, together with the students, works from the class notes to negotiate each paragraph. The teacher continues to ‘think out loud’ but the students do the writing.
Independent writing of the same paragraph or text Some students will be ready to write the text independently. Without access to the jointly constructed paragraph, students are given a text template with the headings. They work from these headings to construct coherent paragraphs. Some advanced students may research additional information and add it to their text in an appropriate place.
Researching another topic with the same text structure Some students will then be ready to research a different topic in the same field. For example, a jointly constructed information report on the behavioural and structural adaptations of the marine iguana could lead to students researching the adaptations of a different animal in the same ecosystem. A jointly constructed text about the alternative fuel source solar energy could lead to students independently writing about wind power.