Improving cohesion in student writing: A professional experiment to improve teacher knowledge

Peter Farrell and Glenda Telford

Zeerust Primary School

Zeerust Victoria Australia 3634

Introduction

Under the auspices of the Australian National Curriculum, literacy includes speaking & listening, reading, literature, language conventions, and writing. Writing is further divided into five domains, these being: (1) Purpose, Audience and Structure of Texts, (2) Text Cohesion, (3) Concept of Print and Screen, (4) Creating Text, and (5) Editing Text (ACARA, 2012).All government schools in Victoria, Australia, where the authors teach, invest considerable time in teaching literacy. There is an expectation by the education department that the first two hours of each day will given over to teaching and learning literacy. The significance of literacy is further emphasised by an annual test of numeracy and literacy undertaken at grades 3, 5, 7 and 9 across the nation. As might be expected, the literacy part of the test includes a writing component. For our small rural school, improving writing is both important and challenging.

By the age of five a child will be able to orally make and comprehend grammatically correct sentences, and are likely to have mastered several thousands words However, the performance of writing is more culturally based and it can take up to three decades, and tens of thousands of hours of practice, for a person to be considered an ‘expert’. Kellogg (2008, p.2) likens this to the effort needed to become a grand chess master or professional musician and he suggests that it is only those individuals for whom writing is a significant part of their day-to-day work that achieve such a level of competency. Of course, primary aged students are not expected to reach this standard but it is our job as teachers to ensure they are placed upon a trajectory towards it.

As self-study teacher-researchers our work is highly contextual, and any theory we might generate is only applicable to our own situation (Farrell, in press). Our theory of practice is underpinned by the idea of the professional experiment, first described by Donald Schön (1987, p.70)in his book, “Educating the Reflective Practitioner”. There are three types of experiment. The first, an exploratory experiment is where the professional implements a change with no expectation for the outcome. The second, is called a move testing experiment, and is similar to an exploratory experiment except that the professional does have a desired outcome in mind. The third kind of experiment called hypothesis testing but unlike an academic experiment, where variables are controlled and the test is expected run its course, a significant feature of this method is that the professional will manipulate the variables and interfere with the experiment in order to force a desired outcome.

Schön (1987) is perhaps better known for his endorsement of reflection as the means by which the professional person improves their professional knowledge and practice. He suggests two iterations of reflection to occur after an intervention. The first reflection, happens quite soon after the intervention, and is a relatively simple event looking at the process used and the outcome achieved. The second reflection occurs much later, and is a much more thoughtful and comprehensive process.

At our school there are six steps in our professional experiment and we make use of the reflective process as part of our approach. These are: (1) Identifying the problem of practice, (2) Knowing-in-action, (3) Make a plan, (4) Implement, observe and/or manipulate the plan, (5) Reflection-on-reflection-in-action (the first iteration), and (6) Reflection-on-reflection-on-action (the second iteration).

Step 1: Identifying the problem of practice

For us, it begins with an intuition, a feeling that something isn’t quite right, and, on further exploration, this feeling is backed up by the evidence. For a couple of years now we have felt that writing at our school has been stymied by the reluctance of our students to write complex text. Last year we tackled the issue through an experiment about teaching and learning grammar (Farrell 2015). Our measure for that experiment was the language conventions component of the annual NAPLAN (national assessment program for literacy and numeracy). All the senior students in the school undertake the test even though only grade three and five students are required to do so. The 2015 test provided data for an effect size of 1.16 over the previous 12 monthsthatcompared very favourably with the 0.6 and 0.62 results of previous years. Hattie (2009, p.17) who writes about effect sizes explains that the hinge point is 0.4, which he says, is the effect a competent teacher would normally realise. So, on the face of it, our students had responded well to our grammar experiment, but we did not feel we had finished the job.

Improving our students understanding and application of language conventions is a technical approach. It is more about addressing the secretarial components of a writing task. We wondered how we might improve the authorial aspect of our students’ writing. Authors control what they write, they know where they are going and they are aware of their audience and try to meet the needs of that audience. How could we move our focus from the technical (secretarial) to the creative (authorial) aspects of writing without losing that we had gained in the previous year.

Step 2: Knowing-in-action

Schön (1987, p.13) says professionals think on their feet, calling on their intuition, experience, knowledge, and personal theory of practice to solve issues in their professional lives, Schön (1987, p.22) calls this practice knowing-in-action. One of the unanticipated outcomes of our earlier experiment was the manufacture of a spread-sheet for the collection of data about our students’ understanding and application of grammar (Farrell 2015, p.7). Across the top of the spread-sheetwere recorded all our students names and what grade they were working towards. Down the sides it showed a break down of the learning area into various domains and the expectation of each grade level. These were sourced from the Australian National Curriculumand they worked so well for grammar we applied the same model to ascertaining where our students were performing in writing.

In 2015 our target for a foundation level subject was 100%. That is we expected all of our students to perform at this level. However our target for grade six learning was just 14.3% - this is because we only had enrolled two grade 6 students (14.3% of the total enrolment). Students achieving a particular expectation would be scored 1, for those students not performing to the level expected, their cell in the spread-sheet would be left blank. Individual student scores could be calculated against the entire requirement of the learning area. For example, the foundation student was expected to score 14% to be on track while a grade 3 student needed to score 57% of the total curriculum to be adjudged as up to standard. Naturally, grade 6 students were required to perform all of the expectations (100%). With this instrument we could ascertain what areas needed to be taught and how individual students were performing. The spread-sheet for grammar proved so useful in our small school setting that others were created for other parts of the literacy program including writing.

Zeerust Primary School has just two teaching staff including the principal but despite our small size we do hold curriculum committee meetings on a weekly basis and once each fortnight we meet as a professional learning team (PLT). The curriculum committee pays attention to what is happening with individual students, aspects of our teaching practice, and to our interventions. The PLT is about collecting data and responding to that, it is also about improving our teaching practice and it was this ‘group’ that undertook a review of the students’ performances against the writing expectations of the national curriculum. The domains of general concern to us were Creating Text, Text Cohesion and Editing text. Notwithstanding the fact that these analyses were conducted early in Term 2 and we would anticipate that any student in a particular grade might be expected to demonstrate an improvement in performance by later in the year, some data indicated that this was by no means a certainty.

Figure 1: Showing school performance against one of five domains of the national curriculum for writing, this being Create Text. The left hand column shows grades and the two right hand columns show our target based upon student enrolment in different grades, and what was being achieved at the beginning of our experiment. The large column shows the criteria some of which paraphrase those in the national curriculum. Teacher judgement indicates an overall weakness in the creating text domain throughout the school.

Figure 1 relates to the domain of Creating Text in the writing domain of the national curriculum. At grade 1 the expectation is that all students in grade 1 and above, which is 93% of our 2015 enrolment, will be able to write short imaginative and information texts. Teacher assessments, as at early Term 2, are that just half of our students can do this. The grade 2 expectation is the same as for grade 1 but with evidence of structure, grammar and meeting the needs of an audience. 85.7% of our students should be doing this but just a third are. The situation is more concerning at grade 4, 5 and 6 level (it should be noted we have no grade 5 students enrolled at our school in 2015 when this intervention took place).

Figure 2: Showing school performance against one of five domains of the national curriculum for writing, this being Text Cohesion. Teacher judgement indicates an overall weakness in the text cohesion domain throughout the school.

Turning now to the domain of Text Cohesion in the national curriculum for writing teacher judgements indicate that apart from a high level understanding around sentence structure and changing the emphasis, text cohesion is not understood by the students and neither, as it turns out, is it specifically taught apart from some extensive work on paragraphing in the senior class (grade 3-6) early in the school year.

Figure 3: Showing school performance against one of five domains of the national curriculum for writing, this being Edit Text. Teacher judgement indicates an overall weakness in the text cohesion domain throughout the school.

Editing Text is a domain in the national curriculum for writing and a quick study of these data might indicate that the school has failed to teach this domain at all. Small school data sets are notorious for their fluctuations and, had we been able to include the data for the three students who graduated at the end of last year, then these data would have looked much better. What is apparent, for those students who remain, is that Editing Text, will be a serious intervention.

At our school the teaching of writing is broken down into three basic forms, narrative, exposition, and persuasive, and particular genre are taught where appropriate.On reflection it would fair to say that our students are not really challenged with their writing unless they already generating written product that competently done, but where the student has not pushed any boundaries. It was this response to simple writing tasks from a number of our senior studentsthat led to the previousexperiment about grammar (Farrell 2015). What those students,in that experiment,had in common, were that they were already quite creative with their writing and they needed to master more complex secretarial writing to do with spelling, punctuation and grammar. However, those students have since graduated and of those who remain, their current writing needs relate to mastering more complex authorial matters; these being matters of organisation, coherence and detail.

We believe that a professional experiment in a school should achieve two outcomes: (1) Address a problem of practice, and (2) Improve the professional knowledge of the teacher. Looking at our practice it would be fair to say that our teaching approach began with teaching a structure, next we would look at coherence and how the piece makes sense, or not. The details were given fairly short shrift by comparison. At our school writing exposition was given more weight than writing narrative. We needed to improve our professional knowledge of authorial skills around the narrative form.

Step 3: Make a plan

Our working hypothesis was simple. We would focus on narrative writing and we would reverse the order of significance in teaching our students about writing complex text. We would start with the details, and work hard to ensure that these were coherent. Only then would we have the students make a choice about which structure would be usedto tell our narrative. We believed we would get more content (creating text) and that the stories would be more coherent and that the editing process would be more effective.

We also determined to become authors of fiction ourselves and write alongside our students (Kelly 2011) and we were to apply this simple model (Black 2015): Character + Setting + Event = Plot. The teaching goal here was to encourage the children to think about the details first and how certain characters are likely to respond in an acceptable way in a particular setting or, to put it another way, that the links in a story can be highlighted ahead of time; this was about encouraging text cohesion in a piece of writing. Paralleling the work in the classroom our PLT (professional learning team) read and discussed a paper by Kellogg (2008) that examines the uptake of writing skill from a cognitive perspective.

Step 4: Implement, observe and/or manipulate the plan

Senior Class (grade 3-6)

Written in first person by the first author

In this class the students were instructed and encouraged to develop a character, setting and event based upon three dot points for each. I would model the writing of each of these in turn. My example character was 50 years old, happy, and a teacher. My setting was a large dilapidated shed, in an isolated area where the wind blew most of the time. The eventI chose was concerned with the arrival of a stranger, acar that wouldn’t start, and no mobile phone service. I would write at the same time as the children with my work being displayed on a large screen. I would share my authorial thinking before, during and after a writing session. My final act of planning was to demonstrate how to write a plot based upon my character, setting and event. This is my character:

Character

  • 50 year old
  • happy
  • teacher

The children only watched the start of this process and then, using word-processors; they worked on their own character. I brought them back near the end of my session to share what I had done.

Wendy was a teacher in a rural secondary school where she taught home economics. She had always loved cooking and especially eating, and she was just a little bit dumpy in shape. OK. Wendy was fat!

Wendy had recently turned 50 and her friends had sprung a surprise party on her. It had been a wonderful event and she had never been happier. Many of her old friends from around the country had been able to come and it had been great to catch up with them. And the food was heavenly.

Her husband, William, was always telling her off about eating too much. “Your heart, Wen, you have to look after your heart,” he would say. It was the only time Wendy felt unhappy. William remembered his own heart attack all too well and everyday he took a cocktail of drugs to stay healthy. Wendy knew she ate too much and did get breathless easily, but she did so enjoy a little cake, or two. It was easier when William went off to his shed.

One of her children, Michael, lived nearby, by himself. He said he was too busy for a girlfriend. Wendy suspected he did not like anyone but himself. Tom lived in another state, happily married with a beautiful child that Wendy would like to see more often.

I needed Wendy to struggle with physical activity, and being an overweight cook was acceptable enough. I also needed an excuse for someone to be at a remote shed, and I needed a convincing cause for Wendy to go there. A poor phone service and a husband who had forgotten his heart medication was a very good motive in my honest opinion. I also needed to give a heads-up that a fit young son existed and lived nearby.

One of the difficulties encountered by some students during the planning phase is that they simply wanted to get on with writing the story and so, in order to value this, I instructed these children not to delete their work, but park it somewhere in another file, as a text fragment. The argument was they might refer to it later and it was a simple task for a word processor.

Peer-assistance is reported as having a 0.75 effect size on improving people’s writing (Kellogg2008, p.20) and so the senior class were instructed to review one other person’s writing and write post-it notes to the writer on how that description could be improved. The idea here was that this action would put editing and audience awareness in more pre-eminent positions than was usually the case.