Inquiry Profiling #5: Collecting in-depth information: Discussions with the Head of Learning English

At our school, our Head of Learning are experts in their own fields and I thought it would be a good idea to discuss with our HOLA of English to gage ideas with regards to supporting our senior Sos kids in their writing.  I asked 3 key questions and was provided some really useful feedback that I want to adapt.

What are some of the biggest issues in writing for our level 2 kids? 

Overall our NCEA Level 2 English students transition from NCEA Level 1 English to NCEA Level 2 English well. Some of the challenges that our akōnga face in their writing comes from the fact that in NCEA Level 1 English they are required to 'develop ideas' where in NCEA Level 2 English the students are required to 'analyse how the writer/director develops the idea'. Our akōnga are learning to unpack and identify the writer or director's voice/purpose and analyse it. Some of our akōnga struggle to identify this and write about it. 

What are some strategies that you may have adopted to support them? 

Some of the strategies that we have adopted to support our akōnga with these challenges, where we feel as kaiako has made a good impact, is through sound and thorough feedback. Both written and verbal feedback is the approach we have taken to support the students, they feel validated when we affirm what they have done and give suggestions on what they need to do to improve. Scaffold structures to written assessments and examples are some other strategies that we use to support our students with their writing. 

What works for our students and what doesn't? 

What works for our akōnga is feedback (throughout the writing process), one-on-one conversations regarding the feedback, sufficient time for the student to settle into the writing (rushing the process does not bring the return we need or want), scaffold structures especially for those who struggle with writing and exemplars - are all things that work for our akōnga. Insufficient feedback (both written and verbal) and rushing our students through written assessments and activities does not benefit our akōnga at all. 

Inquiry Profiling #4: Collecting in-depth information - meeting with a literacy expert

Today I met with our schools literacy expert Marc Milford to help me mark and understand my year 12 students’ asttle tests.   

The tests were based on caring for the planet, which relates to aspects we learn in Social Studies.

This is the process we went through to mark and assess the papers.

1. Read and understand the elements of the criteria.
2. Read the student writing
3. Look at the Manaiakalani rubric
4. Compare the writing with the rubric by looking at exemplars but also criteria.
5. Debate whether it is according to criteria

It was interesting to analyse my senior students’ work and how they wrote according to the topic.

After much discussion and debate we were able to moderate a few papers to which I was comfortable with to do the rest on my own.

Marc shared some links to strategies that I will look at to support my students in their writing.

1. One
2. Two
3. Three
4. Reading observations
   

Inquiry Profiling #3: Collecting in-depth information Student Voice

I have a few ideas (hunches) as what I think my year 12's feel about their writing so I'm going to start with that first.

• Kids have to write but they may not know why it is important or the why so don't put much effort into it.

• Kids have trouble starting to write because they don't know how to start.

• Kids don’t know what to write about because they aren't prepared.

I wanted to check if my ideas were right, so I sent a survey to my year 12's asking them about their thoughts on writing this year and are here some of their results

My thoughts:  Over 70% of students sometimes like writing but they at the same time agree that it is important.  Not surprisingly over 70% believed they were not confident writers. 

For the rest of my questions, I have put the questions and answers on this document and have included them below.