NAPLAN Tip 1 for Persuasion: Know Your Genre
October 6, 2010
The official NAPLAN website advises that the 2011 Writing Task genre will be persuasion and the sample task (http://www.naplan.edu.au/verve/_resources/persuasive_prompt.pdf).asks students to respond to the topic:
Books or TV.
Reading books is better than watching TV.
What do you think about this idea? Write to convince a reader of your opinions.
There are two points to make. Firstly, persuasion is not actually a genre - it’s a purpose. In fact, narratives (short stories, novels etc) can be persuasive which is why Aldous Huxley wrote Brave New World as a novel and George Orwell wrote 1984. They believed that their arguments would reach a wider audience if presented as stories. What the NAPLAN sample task seems to be asking for is a hortatory exposition - in other words an argument with the following basic structure: Thesis and preview of arguments^Arguments elaborated and exemplified^Reinforcement of thesis.
The second point relates to a confusion in NAPLAN’s own instructions: they invite students to think about if they agree or disagree or see both sides of the argument. The last part of this invitation suggests that the discussion genre (Issue^Arguments for^Arguments against^Position) might also be acceptable. While this might seem reasonable, research demonstrates that students who do best in demand writing tasks write with authority, take a definite position. The discussion genre, on the other, encourages students to take a more neutral position - at least until the conclusion. This has the potential to result in a mid-range grade.
Consequently, teachers would be advised to encourage students to write expositions.
Note: ^ in the summary of genre stages means “followed by”.
Student writing: Making a real difference
May 24, 2010
The following is the script of a video sequence I shot for Education Queensland, the state’s education authority. The video is currently being used as a part of their literacy training for Middle School teachers throughout the state. For more information, email lindsay@wordsmartconsulting.com.au.
Script: There’s been some really interesting research done into what makes a difference in writing that gains a mid or a high range grade in the Queensland Core Skills Test Writing Task for year 12. Commonsense might suggest that accuracy in spelling, punctuation and grammar would be the distinguishing feature. In fact, the work of students receiving high and mid-range grades showed no significant difference in these so-called basics. However, other features of the work did appear to make a difference. Students with high grades
- Made an effective and appropriate match among the chosen genre, the register and language. Moreover, this was done at a macro-level (i.e. the best language for the genre and audience) and at a micro-level (i.e. the best language for both stages of the piece, and phases - the mini stages within each big stage).
- They wrote in depth, elaborating their writing through the use of extended noun groups and embedded clauses.
- They wrote authoritatively, taking a strongly positive or negative point of view.
- They made careful selections in their choice of evaluative words. For example, the use of ‘exquisite’ instead of ‘very beautiful’ or the use of ’slunk’ or ’strode’ instead of ‘walked’.
- They used figurative language, including similes and metaphors.
In addition, students receiving high grades generally avoided first person - under test conditions, if you use first person there’s probably a greater chance of slipping into everyday, colloquial language that isn’t highly regarded in demand writing tasks. Moreover, work with a high grade tended to draw on ‘exotic’ knowledge - that is, knowledge about the world that went beyond the students’ immediate, adolescent experience.
What is particularly striking, though, is that similar features can also be found in sample work published in the report on the 2008 NAPLAN writing task, albeit at a less sophisticated level. It is interesting to note, also, that although the high achieving younger students did tend to use first person, their subject matter went beyond everyday lives and allowed these students to demonstrate a broad vocabulary and quite sophisticated grammatical features.
A couple of other features have also struck me as I’ve read through both the Year 12 Writing Task and NAPLAN examples. Firstly, students who wrote narratives and achieved high grades tended to write stories that were very compressed - the whole story jumped straight into the action at a crisis moment in a character’s life, that is ‘in media res’ - and the problem was one that could unfold and resolve itself in a short period of time, probably 5 to 10 minutes of real time.
In students achieving high grades, there was also evidence of grammatical metaphor (especially nominalization - turning verbs into nouns) in even younger students, and in both narratives and expository pieces. This supports a finding by Bev Derewianka and Fran Christie that grammatical metaphor should be emerging between the ages of 9-12. Where this doesn’t occur, students continue to struggle with the demands of academic writing throughout their schooling.
By immersing students in the language features outlined, through explicit modelling, joint construction and guided practice, teachers can help students not just ‘fall over the line’, but also add significant value to their writing - for both demand writing tasks and for writing more generally.
NAPLAN literacy testing: what’s wrong with it?
October 31, 2008
Preamble
The following is written by a Year 3 student. While there are lots of positives about the piece, I want you to read it carefully and think about what follow-up is required to help the student to write (even?) more effectively.
FROGS
Frogs jump and croke a lot. Ther skin is slippery and wet. They hide sometimes and ther big eyes blink. I no some poepel who are scerd of them. I am not scerd of them. I think they are vere cute. Thats what I think.
So, what did you think?
Spelling is an obvious area of continuing need - and we could identify some possible patterns in the misspellings. For example, while there seems to be a fairly good awareness of sound-letter relationships, the student does not always make the correct choices (e.g. croke instead of croak, vere instead of very, scerd instead of scared). Use of apostrophes is another immediately identifiable area of possible need - see ‘Thats’ in the last sentence.
However, as important as these aspects of language might be, they are surface errors easily fixed. More significantly, the student appears uncertain about his purpose in writing about frogs: is it to inform readers about ‘the facts’ or to reflect on how he feels about them? Consequently, he is uncertain about the genre in which he should be writing, and subject matter is chosen and organized seemingly randomly. Additionally, at a more micro-level, the student has difficulty in choosing the appropriate person (first or third?) and with patterning his sentence beginnings (Theme) and endings (Rheme). The result is a piece that demonstrates competent control of basic sentence structure, but a need to develop competence in stringing sentences together so that they create a cohesive, coherent text.
This brief example illustrates two important points about teaching grammar in schools. Firstly, while it is important for student to get ‘the basics’ of spelling and punctuation right, it is not sufficient to enable students to become competent writers. Secondly, teachers require a deep understanding of language and how it functions within particular contexts in order to help students reach their potential - as readers, as well as writers.
So, what’s wrong with NAPLAN?
In the preamble, I indicated that, while the student did indeed have some problems with spelling and punctuation which require some improvement, these were not the main problems with the piece. Rather, the student really needs explicit help in identifying the purpose of his writing and then choosing appropriate genre, structure and language features in order to achieve that purpose.
It is an issue that Dr Lenore Ferguson (2001) has raised in her analysis of 700 samples of the work produced as part of the Queensland Core Skills Test Writing Task. Although she was examining work produced by Year 12 students, she discovered that many students still needed help (after twelve years of schooling) in the ‘matching of micro-text features with the socio-cultural elements of a discourse’ (p277). Furthermore, a recent research-based policy on writing commissioned by the National Council for Teachers of English (2008, p4) declares that: ‘Students need to understand how language works in order to become effective writers, and this is best accomplished by instruction that focuses on a context based functional approach that illustrates how parts of language work together to create meaning.’
It is disappointing then to turn to the NAPLAN Language Conventions Test (2008) and find that of the 50 multiple choice questions:
- 28 focus on spelling
- 9 on punctuation
- and only 6 on matters that are properly grammatical.
(The other questions are focused on a strange mix of identifying poetic devices, graphic elements in text and vocabulary choice).
The six grammar questions ask students to simply identify:
- tense
- first, second or third person
- and word class (verb, noun, adverb, adjective).
While students should be able to identify these aspects of grammar, with enough time you could probably train a monkey to answer most of the grammar questions on the paper. A token gesture is made towards contextualizing the questions by relating them to a short piece of text. The real problem here is that students (and teachers preparing students for the test) are encouraged to believe that labeling and identifying a few, isolated and basic grammatical concepts is enough. At no point are students asked to consider why particular features are being used or how they are functioning within the text.
That has not stopped the media becoming hysterical about student results on the test, with at least one commentator devoting almost an entire article to bemoaning the inability of people she knows to identify a noun! No doubt a shared language about language between teachers and their students is important. However, as Ilana Snyder (2008, p32) points out: “even though there exists a substantial body of experimental research evidence demonstrating that there is little value in the formal teaching of grammar as a mean of improving students’ writing, many people continue to believe that knowledge of traditional grammar is essential to becoming a good writer.’ And this is the real problem in the current public debate - a debate which has the potential to encourage teachers to return to a superficial and largely discredited approach to teaching grammar. We need to remember that, actually, the NAPLAN language conventions test doesn’t tell us much at all and it probably masks what may be a bigger problem: can students use a wide variety of language features in a range of contexts in order to achieve particular purposes and effects.
Note: This is an extract of a much longer article to be published by the Queensland branch of the Australian Literacy Educators Association. (Click here to read more: down-and-dirty-with-grammar).
References
Curriculum Corporation (2008). National assessment program literacy and numeracy: language coventions Year 9 2008. Australia: Curriculum Corporation.
Ferguson, L. (2001). Revealing knowledge in Year 12 writing: an archaeological exploration. [Unpublished Ph. D. thesis]
National Council of Teachers of English (2008). Writing now. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English
Snyder, I. (2008). The literacy wars: why teaching children to read and write is a battleground in Australia. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin.
Improving student writing: modelling
September 21, 2008
Do you need some help with improving your students’ achievement in writing? Here is one strategy for modelling the requirements of particular genres that will contribute to student success. The sample document below is intended to be put on a school’s intranet for ease of student access.
Further details about how this model can be used are provided below.
Contextual information
Preparing students to write effectively in a particular genre (or text type) involves a range of activities, including:
- understanding the purpose of the writing
- generating and developing subject matter to write about
- understanding the roles and relationships involved in the writing, i.e. what is the writer’s role and for whom are they writing?
- explicit teaching of the structure and language demands of the writing task
- explicit teaching of the thinking processes involved in composing within a particular genre.
This knowledge and understanding is commonly developed through strategies such as:
- immersing students in examples of the required style of writing
- modelling and joint construction
- guided and independent practice
- peer and self reflection.
Background information
The interactive document attached is an example of one on-line resource that teachers can make available to students. It is based on an analytical exposition meant for older students - but the idea can be adapted for any age (pre-school upward) and any genre. While the model could be printed out in hard copy form, it is designed to by read on screen.
Some teachers claim that the document is too long and complex. However, a few things need to be kept in mind. Firstly, it is not designed as a standalone document. It assumes that students have been participating in a variety of activities to develop their knowledge and understanding of the required genre. Thus, it acts as a summary of information already taught and, hopefully, learned. Secondly, it is not meant to be read in one sitting. The hyperlinks are provided so that students can move directly to those bits of information they require at a particular moment in time. It is, therefore, more like a resource package that provides just-in-time information for students. Finally, the model provided relates to work done in the last couple of years of schooling when the length and depth of written tasks has increased. For younger students, the model could be much shorter - because the length of writing tasks is also shorter.
Need help?
If you want to know more, or would like help developing some of these models, contact: Lindsay@wordsmartconsulting.com.au.
Improving literacy results in Queensland schools
September 14, 2008
Queensland students have not done as well as their counterparts in other states when it comes to literacy - at least on the raw data. There are a number of unavoidable reasons for this, including:
- the later school starting age for student
- the number of students in living in remote and isolated areas.
However, there is no doubt in my mind that lack of educational leadership from the Queensland Studies Authority (QSA) has much to answer for in this regard. In pandering to the prejudices of politicians, journalists and a small but vocal minority of academics, the QSA has ensured that there has been no statewide syllabus for English since 1987 (yes, 1987 - that’s not a misprint!). To make matters worse, the QSA no longer employs experienced English Heads of Faculty in order to provide advice about teaching English to schools and, recently, a Physical Education teacher was given the task of re-writing the Senior English syllabus. A number of consequences have flowed from this situation:
- a lack of a coherent, educationally sound approach to teaching English and literacy
- confusion in many teachers’ minds about what is the right way to teach English and literacy - with the result that they have often fallen back to outmoded teaching methods.
The situation has been worsed by funding cuts to the QSA by the state government - according to reports, all work on new syllabuses in the early and middle years has stopped until the next financial year due to a redirection of funds to the health system. Providing lists of essential learning targets is only partly helpful.
So, what are teachers to do? Here are some questions to ask yourself:
- Do you have a good knowledge of English grammar (traditional and functional), and can apply that to practical strategies for helping students read and write?
- Do you understand the range of factors that will assist students to undertake reading and writing tasks, including cultural knowledge and understanding, knowledge about language, thinking processes and attitudes?
- Do you consistently and effectively use all aspects of the teaching-learning cycle: modelling, guided practice and independent practice?
- Do you understand the various roles of the reader (code breaker, meaning maker, text user and text analyst) and do you understand the implication of these for teaching individuals and groups of students in your care?
- Do you structure your teaching of reading effectively with appropriate pre, during and after reading activities?
- Do you structure your teaching of writing effectively with appropriate pre, during and after writing activities?
- Do you effectively and explicitly model all significant written tasks that students are required to undertake?
- Are your students trained to reflect effectively on their own work and that of others?
- Is your approach consistent with the approach taken by other teachers at your school?
- Are you part of a professional learning community that seeks to strive for constant improvement?
Helping students use literary language
July 6, 2008
Teachers often comment that students write the way they speak. In imaginative or literary writing, this often manifests itself in pieces that are action oriented and are dominated by the following features:
- First person
- Simple and compound sentences (‘and/but’ as conjunction)
- Short noun groups
- Everyday, colloquial language, including for evaluations (e.g. ‘The ride was really awesome’)
In order to make their works appealing and accessible for older children and adolescents, much professional young adult literature displays these same characteristics.
However, recent research into ‘demand’ writing tasks (standardized writing tests) is suggesting that the features most valued by markers include:
- Third person
- Complex sentences (independent & subordinate clause/s)
- Choice of nouns and verbs for implicit, evaluative purposes (e.g. ‘The snow was lofted onto the window sill.’)
- Long noun groups
- Figurative and symbolic language, especially for evaluations.
In my own work with schools, I am starting to notice a disconnect between the type of texts that students are reading and writing in the upper primary and middle schools, and the expectations of the senior school. Put simply, in addition to the highly accessible and popular books available, students also need exposure to and immersion in more sophisticated (age appropriate) writing from quite early in their schooling. For at least some of these texts, they need to study the language use closely so that they can develop an explicit understanding of how particular literary effects are achieved.
Provided below is a first attempt at providing some recommendations for stories that use various elements of a more literary style of language, should be appealing to students, and could be read independently or read aloud by the teacher - extracts will work best in some circumstances. They are arranged in rough groupings according to age suitability, the list includes a number of titles published in Australia, and there is a mix of classics and more contemporary stories (including some well written popular fiction). The editions listed may not be the most recent and some books may be out of print; where this is the case, try your local library or second hand book store. Finally, this list will be updated over time and your comments on the selection are most welcome.
Note: Please make sure you preview titles before using them in your classroom to ensure that they are appropriate for your school and community context.
Younger children
Start with: Muntean, M and Lemaitre (illus.) (2006). Do not open this book! New York: Scholastic Press. [No literary masterpiece, but a fun book to introduce the notion of word play and the power of language.]
Early, M. (1991). William Tell. Montville, Qld: Walter McVitty Books.
Issa and Karas, G. B. (2007). today and today. New York: Scholastic Press. [A beautiful book of haiku for children - based on the seasons of the year.]
Lester, A. (1994). Isabella’s bed. Rydalmere, NSW: Hodder Headline Australia Pty Ltd.
Lester, A. (1990). Magic Beach. North Sydney, NSW: Allen and Unwin.
Mahy, M. and Chamberlain, M (illus.) (1985). The man whose mother was a pirate. London, England: Puffin Books.
Older children/Young adolescents
Adornetto, A. (2007). The shadow thief. Australia: Angus and Robertson.
Babbit, N. (1975). Tuck Everlasting. USA: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
Barrie, J. M. (1998). Peter Pan and Wendy. Bath, UK: Robert Frederick Ltd.
Bear, G. (1998). Dinosaur summer. London: HarperCollins Publishers.
DiTerlizzi, T. and Black, H. (2003). The Spiderwick chronicles: the field guide. Sydney: Simon and Schuster.
Gurney, J. (1992). Dinotopia: a land apart from time. Bathurst, NSW: Crawford House Press Pty Ltd.
Hartnett, S. (2007). The ghost’s child. Camberwell, Victoria: Viking (Penguin).
Lewis, C. S. (1950). The chronicles of Narnia: the lion, the witch and the wardrobe. Great Britain: Geoffrey Bles.
Lynch, J. (2008). The highest tide. London: Bloomsbury. (See Review of The highest tide)
Sutcliff, R. (1992). Beowulf: dragonslayer. London, UK: Red Fox (Random House Children’s Books).
Tan, S. (2008). Tales from outer suburbia. Crows Nest, NSW: Allen and Unwin.
Tolkien, J. R. R. (1994). The Lord of the Rings: the fellowship of the ring. London: HarperCollins Publishers.
Wild, M. and Spudvilas, A (illus.) (2006). Woolvs in the sitee. Camberwell, Victoria: Viking (Penguin).
Older adolescents
Bear, G. (2003). Darwin’s children. London: HarperCollins Publishers.
Betts, A. J. (2008). Shutterspeed. Western Australia: Freemantle Press.
Blixen, K. (1954). Out of Africa and Shadows on the grass. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin.
Greene, G. (2001). Twenty-one stories. Sydney: Vinatge. (see ‘The destructors’ in particular)
Guterson, D. (1995). Snow falling on cedars. Great Britain: Bloomsbury.
Proulx, E. Annie (1993). The shipping news. London: Fourth Estate Ltd.
Scott Fitzgerald, F. (1950). The great Gatsby. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin.
Suskind, P. (1985). Perfume: the story of a murderer. Ringwood, Victoria: Penguin.
Temple, P. (2005). The broken shore. Melbourne, Australia: Text Publishing.
