solutions writing challenge

How to help students improve their writing skills

Olha Madylus

Writing: Solutions to Mistakes

Aims of this session

Professional Development 2

• To explore challenges in developing writing skills

• To question current approaches to developing writing

• To suggest strategies to address these problems:

• Scaffolding writing

• Collaborative writing

• Sub-skills focussed tasks

• Marking written work


• They rarely check their work let alone rewrite.

• They don’t pay attention to my corrections.

• They keep making the same mistakes.

• They say it takes too much time and effort.

• They don’t make the same mistakes in a grammar exercise.

Teachers’ comments

A typical approach?


Students work through a course book unit based on a topic.

Teacher sets a written task based on that unit for homework.

Students do the task at home, alone, and hand it in.

Teacher corrects / marks it and returns it to students.

Little progress is evident.

Possible flaws in that system


• Writing is left until a unit is completed.

• Writing is not done regularly in class.

• Writing is done alone.

• Students are expected to write a long text.

• There’s a lot of marking that teachers have to do.

• Students find self-correction boring.

• Students see a lot of corrections /’red ink’ on the page

= feel like ‘failures’

How teens deal with criticism


How teens deal with criticism


Blah blah!

I can’t

hear you!

She told me

I’m stupid, so

I must be

stupid!

It’s too

boring to

do it

again. Why am I doing

this?

John Atkinson’s theory of

achievement motivation

“All individuals can be characterised by two

learned drives, a motive to approach success

and a motive to avoid failure.”


A scaffolded approach

9

Students

have as

much

support as

needed to

succeed

Professional Development

Writing tasks are

• short and regular

• achievable

• collaborative

• clear as to what sub-skills are being developed

• creative

• discussed / analysed

• celebrated


10

Professional Development 11 Solutions, Intermediate, p91

For example

One sentence descriptions

His mouth, full of metal teeth, twisted into an unnatural smile

and his eyes were dull yet full of menace.


Your turn


For example


Best opening lines.

Book reviews:

I have read many books in English, but this was the most

exciting, best described and weirdest book I have ever read.

Collaborative writing

share ideas

cross-skills approach

awareness of process

easier to see others’ mistakes

peer correction

teacher at hand

fewer distractions


Focus on sub skills


Correct grammar Range of vocabulary

Accurate punctuation Correct layout

Correct register Accurate spelling

Sentence structures Linking

Imagination Planning

Drafting Proofreading

Communication

Focus on sub skills


Deconstruct and reconstruct

Focus on one or two skills at a time and slowly combine them

in writing tasks.

For example

As I walked into the …….. bank on a ………… Tuesday

morning, I immediately realised something was …….. wrong.

………… customers were lying ……………. on the floor and

two ……….. men wearing …………. were holding ………..guns

and shouting……………..


For example

Brainstorm at least 5 reasons for

and 5 reasons against

allowing people under 16 years of age to:

(a) marry (b) vote and (c) drive.


Creative writing


Where are they? Who are they?

What are they

saying?

Where is he

going?

What were they

doing earlier?

What did they have

for breakfast?

Reasons to edit

• Share

• Portfolios

• Being a writer

• School web site / magazine

• Story of the month award

• Write letters to real people


Marking work

On year 10,000 scientists found a very big problem! A very tiny microchip was into a computer. This microchip could destroy the hole world. Scientists were trying over five years to destroy it but it was so impossible.


22



Great introduction –

very exciting



Super contrast

between big and

tiny



Highly dramatic



Accurate grammar

Learning from mistakes?

Adults have a developed anterior cingulate cortex, which

… can help detect mistakes.. This part of the brain is still

being wired in teenagers, making it more difficult for them,

even when they recognise a mistake, to learn from it.

The Teenage Brain, Frances E Jensen, Thorsons, 2015

“Our job as teachers is not to point out

differences between our students’ language and

standard English. That is too negative a role.

Our job is to encourage the growth of language

by appreciating the learning steps.”

Edge, Julian

“Mistakes and Correction”

Longman


The aim of marking

• To show students what they are doing right

• To show students where they need to make improvements

and how

• To encourage students

• To enable students to reflect on their own writing

• To celebrate the effort the students have made

• To enable teachers to notice skills / language areas that need

to be readdressed in class


Marking ideas

• Select and make clear what aspects of the writing you are

going to mark

• Highlight everything good about the writing

• Choose 2 positive and 2 negative aspects of the writing to

focus on

• Respond to the meaning not just to the errors

• Don’t use red pen

• Peer marking



www.olhamadylusblog.com

Thank you for taking part

We look forward to welcoming you to more OUP webinars in the future

www.oup.com/elt/events


solutions writing challenge

Documents

turn professional development

developing writing skills

scaffolded approach

typical approach

course book unit

blah blah

written task

book reviews