English in the New Zealand Curriculum
Level 1: Writing Functions
Poetic Writing: Students should write on a variety of topics, beginning to shape ideas.
Levels 1 and 2: Reading and Writing Processes
Exploring Language: Students should explore choices made by writers, and identify and use the common conventions of writing and organisation of text which affect understanding.
Thinking Critically: Students should identify and express meanings in written texts, drawing on personal background, knowledge, and experience.
English in the New Zealand Curriculum, pages 35–36
http://www.tki.org.nz/r/language/curriculum/contents_e.php
Because The Learning Context and Integrating Reading and Writing sections for the character exemplars are so closely related, they have been combined in a shared introduction, which applies to all the character exemplars. It suggests the approach Cody's teacher may have taken to working with the class on character writing. It also suggests ways in which teachers can integrate character writing with reading.
Read the Introduction to character writing
Teacher-student conversations
Before the first draft:
| Teacher: |
What special things does your gran usually say? |
| Cody: |
Sometimes she rings me. |
| Teacher: |
What does she ring you for? What do you talk about? |
Cody vividly described to the teacher all the funny make-believe things his gran would say when she rang him.
| Teacher: |
What a lot of funny stories! Could you choose one to put in your story? That would tell us more about Gran. |
| Cody: |
I'll put the bit about the sheep on the lawn. |
To move Cody towards the next learning step, the teacher could help him to focus on:
- Impact and voice – developing an awareness of the audience and including more explicit personal responses.
- Ideas – extending ideas to include more detail.
- Grammar – developing confidence in using simple and compound sentences correctly.
- Layout – developing consist spacing between words.
The teacher could do this by:
- making the idea of the audience explicit when conferencing (for example, "Your readers might like to know ...") and through sharing and publishing writing
- questioning to elicit personal responses and further detail
- modelling, focusing on spacing between words, and generating simple and compound sentences
- providing Cody with specific feedback on his writing.
References
Ministry of Education (1994). English in the New Zealand Curriculum. Wellington: Learning Media.
TKI English community
Print version of this exemplar (PDF, 110kb)
Print Introduction to character writing (PDF, 54kb)
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