Writing: Foster Composing Before Conventions

Teaching writing frequently involves a balancing act between teaching the conventions of grammar and spelling and addressing aspects of craft and meaning. Unfortunately for young writers, many teachers devote disproportionate attention to perfecting the secretarial aspects of writing, much to the detriment of capturing ideas, attention to important details, a sense of audience, risk taking and voice - things that matter when writing. 

When spelling correctly is an over-arching consideration, young writers avoid ambitious vocabulary choices. They write –safely. They write less, and they write tentatively for fear of getting it wrong. The writer, perceived as a 'good' speller, may in fact be a 'safe' speller, such is their fear of getting it wrong. 

Grainger et al. (2005) claimed teachers frequently send children off to write with the songs of how to fulfil technical aspects of writing ringing in their ears and anything else is sadly swept aside. Any tune the text may potentially possess, as well as the voice, the meaning, or original intention, are drowned out in the quest to attend to the transcriptional aspects of writing. The resultant writing has been leached of originality.

Donald Graves reminded us that writers understand where spelling fits in the writing process, and it isn’t before the capturing of ideas. The act of composing and getting ideas on to the page should be the writer’s prime consideration at this early stage of the writing process.

 It is imperative the young writer be afforded time and space to compose and trap their fragile thoughts and ideas before they float away. They should be released to focus on matters pertaining to purpose and audience. At this stage they need to focus their cognitive energy towards making decisions about text design, tone, sentence structure, text cohesion, and word choice. This is a complex challenge in itself. We do the writer an injustice, if we overload them with concerns around spelling and grammar, at this point. It will be dealt with at a later stage of the process. Not forgotten, merely positioned elsewhere to obtain maximum effect, thus allowing the writer some space to focus on composing -and hopefully delivering their best words and ideas to the page.

A recent study (May 2022) of writing in Australian Primary Schools, Years 1-6  (Malpique, Valcan, Pasternak and Ledger) revealed that Australian primary teachers allocate more time to teaching functional skills, than process writing skills. Teachers reported they usually spent the majority of time attending to  sentence skills and organisational features of texts, particularly in the early years of schooling. Sadly, 11% of teachers indicated they never employed pre-writing strategies such as talking ,discussing, brainstorming, listing, researching, rehearsing, drawing, and/or planning when teaching writing. Teaching strategies for planning and revising were the least included in teachers’ reported instructional practices, with the majority of teachers (77%) indicating that they taught strategies for revising and planning as little as once a month, or less. Teachers, who believed they were better prepared, were more likely to report that they taught strategies supporting the development of process skills.

Participating teachers reported spending more time teaching spelling (85 min per week) and teaching grammar (55 min per week). By contrast, time reportedly devoted to teaching revision and planning strategies was less (42 and 35 min, respectively). The findings from the study are consistent with previous findings from numerous other countries. They also point to an over emphasis on matters secretarial, to the detriment of authorial development.

Matters related to spelling and grammatical matters ideally make their way onto the stage during revision and editing. It is here the writer strives to make the writing ‘reader friendly.’ It is here that such matters gain relevance for the writer, as they want their writing to look and sound right, should they wish to share with an audience. The writer shifts focus and gives attention to a different aspect of the writing process. This is the most appropriate and sensible time (and place) to attend to these surface features of writing. This approach and positioning of matters transcriptional helps young writers attend to both composing and transcription concerns at the optimum time in the process. With time and guided practice, the writer learns to use these skills concurrently, as proficient writers do.

In the initial stages of writing, young writers  must be encouraged to write openly and honestly, feeling free to take risks with language and form. No writer benefits while feeling bound up in rules and conventions, before they even start.

If we want to incentivise more conventional spelling among developing writers, then opening up more opportunities to publish/share would seem to present as a most legitimate way to do this. It brings the notion of audience to the fore. Raising awareness of audience is a powerful way to encourage young writers to be more focused on the needs of readers.

As far back as 1980, the research conducted by Lucy Calkins found that in classrooms where writing was purposeful and attention was focused on how readers were affected by the way writing was presented, writers used a wider range of punctuation and used it more effectively. This contrasted with classrooms where writing was regulated and punctuation was highlighted above other considerations. Regular re-reading of written pieces (aloud) to oneself and to peers would further assist in moving writing towards the reader friendly zone. Discussion could also take place before, during and after to determine how the writing might be organized in order to support the reader.

When considering ways to improve spelling among developing writers, consider :

  •          Providing regular, sustained opportunities to read and write
  •          Providing explicit instruction about how to proofread
  •          Provide explicit spelling instruction -phonology, morphology, orthography, and etymology right from the start.

(Adoniou 2014; Alves et al. 2019)

Grammar, as so much research informs us, is best taught, contextually. Frequent opportunities to highlight how proficient writers employ grammar and punctuation arise when using mentor texts, interactive read-aloud, shared reading, modelled writing and interactive writing. If the role of grammar is to be understood, it must be examined within the context of crafted writing. So, there will be plenty of applied grammar to draw to the writer’s attention at various times.

So, given all these findings, what are the implications in balancing out these teaching demands around writing? Well, it would seem most prudent to initially focus on composing skills and processes early on in writing. Matters pertaining to the accuracy of spelling, grammar and other linguistic features should be allocated time during revision and editing phases.

Acknowledging the importance of developing both composing and transcription abilities within the emerging writer is the first step. Understanding these different processes need to co-exist in harmony and not become a hindrance to writing development is absolutely imperative. Inexperienced writers should not be required to wrestle with these challenging tasks simultaneously before they fully understand their uniquely different functions. Only then can they begin to integrate these functions successfully.

It’s the same approach we adopt when initially teaching the different expectations surrounding revision and editing. If we overload a young writer’s working memory, it reduces the effectiveness of our teaching and ultimately the young writer’s ability to craft a meaningful text.

© Alan j Wright

 References:

Adoniou, M (2014) What Should Teachers Know About Spelling. Literacy, 48(3).

Calkins,L (1980) when Children Want to Punctuate. Basic Skills belong in Context. Language Arts, 57.

Daffern, T and MacKenzie, N. (2015) Building Strong Writers. Creating a balance between the authorial and secretarial elements of writing. Literacy Learning, 23.

Grainger,T., Goouch, K., and Lambirth, A. (2005) Creativity and Writing: Developing Voice and Verve in the Classroom, London, Routledge.

Graves, D. (1983) Writing: Teachers & Children at Work. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Malpique, A. Valcan, D., Pino-Pasternak, D., Ledger, S. Teaching writing in primary education (grades 1–6) in Australia (2022): A national survey, Edith Cowan University

Young, R. & Ferguson, F. (2021) Writing For Pleasure, Theory, Research and Practice. Routledge. 



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