Murray Gadd - Writing Workshop

Murray Gadd - Writing Workshop

Saturday 2nd March 2019

Murray Gadd Flyer
PowerPoint

What did I learn?

I found this writing workshop very inspiring! I learnt that, as a whole, New Zealand is underachieving in writing and it is critical to keep pushing. Writing is important for all aspects of school, including NCEA tests.

"It is what teachers actually do, moment by moment in their classrooms, that makes a difference to student [engagement and] achievement."                                                       ~ Effective Literacy Practice, back cover.

As teachers, we can't change the past of the child and their background, all we can do is work on what we do with those kids inside the classroom.

To help children understand what they're writing about and to emerge fully in the process it is key to explore their topic. For example, if writing about a Winters day, go outside on a cold day and touch, smell, look and listen to the things around them. Then they can choose how to write and make a winters day come alive. This could be done in many ways like a poem, narrative, etc.

A student never gets excited over a learning intention or genre! Instead, children need to be engaged in their topic, know the purpose and know their audience. Students should be thinking 'What do I have to do as a writer to do this job well?'

What will I incorporate? 

Are my students writing enough? No. Here is what I am going to do to encourage more writing and help increase the students stamina: 

• Prompting to move on - Maybe your reader needs to know...
• Sustained writing daily tasks - Give students one minute to think about the topic and make a plan (could be in their head) and then they write for as long as they can. Make it like a competition and the pencil can't leave the paper. Each day students stamina should increase and they will be able to write for long periods of time and actually just write for fun!

All writing has to be well planned but planning can and should be done in a variety of ways. Sometimes it can be in their heads, a mind map, a flowchart or a picture.

As well as including independent writing, I'm going to adjust my instructional writing in class. Our instructional writing programme will run for four days (usually Tuesday - Friday).
I will be incorporating writing into our topic: Anzac/War Inquiry


I want to include a range of teaching approaches: writing TO, WITH, and BY within the programme. I will need to include teacher modelling but sometimes only for those children that need it. I will know if they need it through tracking them or if they opt in for such a workshop.

Children need to know that they are writing for a purpose. The purpose may be; to persuade others; to entertain others; to inform others; or writing for self. They also need to know their audience, such as, the teacher, other students, community or whānua.

There are four questions that students should answer before they say their work is finished:

• Does it make sense?
• Does it sound right?
• Have I used the best words I can?
• Have I been courteous to the reader?

Murray Gadd's Learning Progressions

Here are some books that can be used to inspire writing in the classroom:

Once upon an ordinary school day by Colin McNaughton

-freedom

-creative atmosphere

-did something new - music as a stimulus 

-no rules or criteria or modelling

-every kid created something different

-one thing doesn't fit all

-enthusiastic teacher

-he was interested in their writing.

Press Here by Herve Tullet 

-write their own interactive book

-writing instructions

-write an interactive book as a class and gift it to the kindergarten.

The day the crayons quit by Drew Daywalt and Oliver Jeffers
-writing from different perspectives
-letter writing
-persuasive writing.

Library mouse by Daniel Kirk
-EVERYBODY IS AN AUTHOR!