Living Life Twice

  By the time students reach Grade three they have been exposed to, continually reminded and alerted to the importance of using ending punctuation at the conclusion of sentences. However, if we look at the writing samples they produce early in the school year, we notice how intermittently such marks appear in their work. Punctuation often appears by chance rather than conscious effort. If we want developing writers to exhibit consistency in the use of punctuation, we need to teach them to value its use in their writing. The best case scenario is to have young writers using punctuation with thoughtful intent. How do we achieve this? Let’s start by initiating a close study of how such ending punctuation can be used to make writing more interesting for the reader.  The message needs to be- This punctuation helps to convey the writer’s voice!  Remind them to link their reading of their writing to an emotion - anger, happiness, frustration etc. The me...

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 p...