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Paul Gardner discusses the pre-entry writing practices of first year Primary and Early Childhood Education (ECE) BEd students at one Australian university

Image courtesy of interviewee. May 27, 2024

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The speaker discusses the decline in writing achievement over the years as evidenced by standardized national tests in various jurisdictions, including Australia and the United States. They express concern about the emphasis on transcriptional skills (grammar, spelling, punctuation) over compositional skills (creativity, audience engagement) due to these assessments.

The speaker highlights that many teachers and student teachers lack confidence in their writing abilities, which impacts their teaching effectiveness. A study involving over 1200 students revealed that a significant percentage (77%) felt trepidation about writing, with many not having engaged in key writing forms for years.

In response, an innovative curriculum was implemented in which student teachers kept private writing journals and responded to prompts without assessment pressure, allowing them to explore their identities as writers. This video video approach resulted in increased confidence and a rekindling of their love for writing, despite initial anxiety regarding the process.

The speaker emphasizes the importance of viewing children as writers, allowing them to write for personal enjoyment rather than solely for assessment. They argue for diverse audiences for student writing, as well as fostering opportunities for children to engage in writing freely. Overall, the speaker advocates for a shift in focus from formulaic writing and standardized metrics toward a more holistic understanding of writing as a creative and personal process.

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A number of academics have found, that,

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when we look at, standardized, nationalized,

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standardized tests of writing,

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there has been a decline in achievement.

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Um, I mean, I, I did a study here in Australia of, r

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nationalized standardized testing, which is called naplan.

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You have SATs in the uk and in, in the US they have nep.

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Um, and across all these three jurisdictions,

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the same finding has occurred that according

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to these nationalized tests, the standard

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of writing has declined over a 10 to 12 year period.

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Um, so that's cause of concern,

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and we need to investigate why that is happening.

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Um, in my particular field, ha ha has been investigating,

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student teachers as writers

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because it, that may be a contributory

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factor to this decline.

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Okay. Well, I, I personally think that,

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and not, well, not just my personal view,

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but, a number of, researchers in writing

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and writing tends to be an, an area

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of the English curriculum that is under research.

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There's far more attention given to, to reading

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and particularly early reading than writing.

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So writing tends to be neglected.

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So there are relatively few of us actually

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investigating writing and, and,

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and the, the problems with writing.

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But from my perspective, what I see happening is that

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because we have these nationalized, standardized tests,

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there is a particular view of writing, that is,

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perpetuated that in my view is an erroneous view of writing.

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Uh, we can think of writing in terms

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of transcriptional skills and compositional skills,

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and we can think about, the role of the writer,

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the identity of the writer.

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Um, what tends to happen with nationalized tests,

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and particularly the allied tests around, grammar,

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punctuation, and spelling, is

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that the transcriptional skills tend to get privileged

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above compositional skills.

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And this is what's tested,

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and these are the things that, that tend to,

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get privileged in the classroom.

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Um, and both teachers

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and students have a concept of writing that is situated

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around these transcriptional skills rather than the more

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qualitative, compositional skills

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and the role of the writer and so on.

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I think it's both, actually.

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I think there's a, a long term tendency, to,

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to view writing in, in terms of writing as a product,

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and the, the, the processes of, of, of writing

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and the creativity of writing the effect that,

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we are trying to get students to, the effects

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that we're trying to, to encourage them, to create

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for an audience.

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I think those kind of things are tending to be neglected.

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And I think it's largely because, the majority

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of teachers are not writers.

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Um, the majority of teachers are

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Avid readers, but they don't write.

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And I recall going back, probably a decade or more,

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and when I would had a, you know,

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I'd have 150 students in front of me in a lecture theater,

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and I'd ask, how many of you,

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get pleasure in reading and, you know, be a forest of hands

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and ask the same question about writing?

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Well, there's, there's an issue around what we mean

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by pleasure, but, there would be maybe four

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or five hands went up.

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Um, and,

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and so I, I, I, I was keen to investigate what

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students were coming to university with in, in terms

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of their, their writing.

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And so, the, the paper that I'm about to talk about

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investigated that very thing.

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Probably the most, renowned person in this field is

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Theresa Kremin, and Deborah Myhill and,

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and those kind of people working from the Open University

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in the UK and, Exeter.

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Um, and they have done quite a lot of work

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around teachers as writers.

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That's been their focus.

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Um, and what they found was that, that teachers,

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the majority of teachers tend

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to have lack confidence in themselves as writers.

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And they instituted a number of programs,

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that demonstrated that once teachers are

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inside the writing process

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and they develop, greater confidence of themselves

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as writers, and that they improve their own writing.

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So I'm working from that kind of position

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with student teachers as writers.

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And what I found was, yes, exactly the same thing

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that student teachers came to university.

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Um, the vast majority of them,

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them lacked confidence in themselves as writers.

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So, there was a large study, that we did

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of over 1200 students,

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on NGT University, lacked confidence, 75%,

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actually, 77% of them, had trepidations about writing.

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They didn't really have full confidence in themselves

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as writers, and almost half of those had really

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negative views of themselves as writers.

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So if we work from that basis, and,

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and, we know that,

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that teachers teach well when they're enthusiastic about the

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subject they're teaching, and

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that has a positive effect on student learning.

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So if we're saying, 50 to 70% of, of, of our,

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beginning teachers

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or ongoing teachers lack confidence in themselves

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as writers, then it means that they're not

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inside that writing process.

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They don't understand the writing process, and

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therefore that that's bound

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to have an impact on their ability to teach writing.

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And my view is you wouldn't send a a, a a, you know,

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a guitar teacher into school,

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without knowing how to play the guitar.

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So I think we should be sending teachers into schools

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to teach writing who have an insider view of writing.

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They understand what writing means,

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how you use language to create particular effects.

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Uh, and, and, and if they have greater confidence in

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themselves as writer writers, they're likely

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to have greater efficacy in

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themselves as teachers of writing.

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So that, that basically is the thesis. Yeah, sure.

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So one of the things we asked them was, about the,

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the kinds of writing that they had

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done over a period of time.

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So we, we sort of identified various,

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text types ranging from digital texts, like emails

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and texting, writing of lists, writing reports,

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recounts, persuasive writing, poetry,

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narrative writing, and so on.

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And we basically asked them, well,

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when was the last time you wrote in these particular forms?

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Well, as you might expect, all those digital forms,

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were very recent, you know, within the day sometimes

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or within the week, and so on

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and so forth, particularly with, texting

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and social media,

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and emails, lists was quite high, on the list.

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Um, but then when we got to those kind of, texts

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that they needed to be able to teach in the classroom, such

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as narrative writing, persuasive writing,

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informational text

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and poetry, we found that,

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quite high numbers, between 40 to 70%,

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over 70% in the case of poetry

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had not written in those forms for more than two years.

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And a number of students had not written in those forms

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for a significantly longer.

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I mean, there was one student who'd not written a narrative

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or a poem for 20 years, obviously a mature student, but,

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but that was not atypical, you know?

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So, quite a number had not written,

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in those forms for six to 10 years.

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Well, if we add on a four year teaching degree to that,

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then we are talking at least a decade for quite a number of

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students going into the school.

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And some students had never written a poem, for example.

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Um, so the question there is how can you go in

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and teach confidently if you have not had,

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recent experience of writing those particular forms?

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Yeah. So what we decided to do, we used that,

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that information then to change our curriculum.

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So we created a year, one English unit

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in which we positioned all our students as writers.

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And by that I mean, what we did was we, we, we asked 'em

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to keep a writing journal, which was gonna be private

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to them, so we wouldn't see it.

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It wasn't going to be assessed or anything like that.

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Um, but week on week, we gave them writing prompts.

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Um, they didn't have to use these writing prompts, but they

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provided, you know, a default position as it were.

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Anyway, so they created the, we, they, they, they,

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wrote in response to these writing prompts

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or some other prompt that they, they wanted to adopt.

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So by the end of the unit, they had 10 pieces of writing.

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We then asked them to polish three pieces of writing.

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And their final assessment was around,

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what they learned about themselves as writers,

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what they learned about the compositional process rather,

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and how that knowledge of themselves as writers

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and the writing process, came together to inform

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how they thought they would teach writing in the classroom.

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Um, at the outset, we asked them,

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sorry, not at the outset.

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At the end of this, process, we asked them,

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how they had felt when we, told them

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that we were gonna position them as writers,

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and they were gonna write creatively over,

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the course of the semester.

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And, the vast majority of them, felt anxious,

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nervous, trepidatious.

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Um, very few

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of them were really excited about this, this prospect.

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Um, however, at the end of, of this process,

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we then interviewed,

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it was a relatively small scale staff.

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We interviewed a number of, students,

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to get their feedback on, on the whole experience

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of being positioned as writers.

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We interviewed about half a dozen students,

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and this was, we interviewed them the semester

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after they'd done, that particular, piece of work,

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because of course, some of that work was assessed,

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and we didn't want our, our interviews to kind of taint the,

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the assessment process so they,

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they'd had their marks back and all the rest of it.

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Um, and so, we, we interviewed these students

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and they were all, I mean,

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it might have been our selection of, or,

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or they were self-selecting in fact, which may have,

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may have an impact on, on findings.

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But nevertheless, these students were very positive

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about the whole experience.

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And they did say that they had felt, slightly nervous,

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and trepidatious about doing this activity.

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So they did kind of match with the, the majority, at,

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at the beginning of the process.

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But, so in one instance,

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for example, a student said, it has enabled me

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to rekindle my love of writing.

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And this student had talked about how, writing

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for her at school had been very formulaic.

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Um, so it wasn't, wasn't a pleasurable thing, but, she

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and a number of other students, said

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that they wrote at home quite a lot,

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particularly when they're in primary school.

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And they used to write stories and used to, so

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that was their passion in writing.

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School, writing was formulaic and dull,

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and they had very little control of it,

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but at home, they had much greater freedom

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of choice in terms of

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what they could write about when they wrote,

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how long they took to write, and so on and so forth.

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Um, and another study I did on reluctant writers a number

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of years ago, I looked at,

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reluctant writers from year one to year four.

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And this was, this was in England across 19 primary schools.

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Um, and what I found was that these children

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who were de deemed to be reluctant writers in,

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in the school, 98% of them were writing at home.

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Um, and so what I deduce from what that was, they had,

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they had kind of split writer identities.

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They had a school writer identity,

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but a home writer identity.

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And, the same kind of things emerged from that study.

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It was, you know, they had, parents who,

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with their audience or their peers or,

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or sorry, their siblings

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or, in some instances their neighbors.

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So they had already made audience.

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Whereas in school, often the audience for the child

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as a writer is the teacher.

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And writing is something that you give the teacher

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and you get feedback on it.

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So you're constantly being assessed on your writing.

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There was no kind of freedom to, to actually write,

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for the sake of writing.

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Um, and that's what came from these students.

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They all talked about writing,

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being very formulaic in school.

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They didn't enjoy school writing.

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Um, but by being positioned as writers in this unit

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and being given the freedom

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to write in whatever way they wanted,

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'cause we didn't stipulate on any text type.

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We just gave them a prompt

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and told 'em they could write whatever they wanted

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and whatever way they wanted,

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however much they wanted, and so on and so forth.

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And of course, some, some prompts would've captured their

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imagination more than others.

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And that, that, that was fine.

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Um, but they talked about how that freedom to write,

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a a kind, a broader, broader kind of joy,

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and fulfillment.

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And they, they,

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realigned their thinking about themselves as writers.

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And they all talked about how,

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how much more confident they found as writers at the end

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of the process than, than at the beginning.

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Now, what we don't know, of course, is will that, will

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that be sustained?

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'cause this was the first year of their course.

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They've got three more years to go,

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and then of course they're into, into schools.

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Will that be sustained?

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And, and will they take that into their, their teaching?

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Um, and,

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and the problem here is I think that there is a kind

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of cycle that if school writing is formulaic

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and our students are coming

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to us in initial teacher education with that kind of concept

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of themselves as writers, lacking confidence

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because they can't, or they, they dislike writing,

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but we change that maybe for a moment.

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Who knows, maybe, maybe it does have a long term effect,

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but they go back into schools

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and they go back into that environment of formulaic writing.

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And, and in many ways it's perhaps even more formulaic now

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because we've got commercial companies that are selling

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writing products to writing programs, to schools,

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and then it becomes a whole school policy.

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Everybody's got to adopt that, that policy, you know, that

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that program rather.

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And so there's this almost this cycle that we have,

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that I think is leading to greater

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and greater deterioration in the writing process.

15:17.395 --> 15:19.285
Okay. Well, my takeaway message is

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that this very formulaic approach, this attention,

15:22.745 --> 15:25.885
to detail in relation to transcriptional skills

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simply isn't working.

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And we need to think of, the student

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and the child as a writer and what it means to be a writer.

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I mean, I write poetry, for example.

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Um, if you ask me to, to, to write a poem here

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and now in front of you, I probably couldn't do it.

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But we are asking children to do that all of the time.

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You know, here's a little prompt.

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Uh, we want you to write this for the next 45 minutes.

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And there is no warmup.

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There is no, they're not able to draw on, on, funds

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of knowledge, for example.

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Um, but they have vast resources

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at if only we identify what those resources are and, and,

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and get them to realize what those resources are.

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Um, and, so I think focusing on the child

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as a writer is really important

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and developing their agency as a writer,

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eliciting the language that they already have,

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and showing them how they can use

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that language in powerful ways.

16:27.785 --> 16:31.285
Um, and then there seems to be a great emphasis on,

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on feeding vocabulary to children, which is fine,

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but vocabulary doesn't make you a good writer.

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I mean, Allwell, for example, said, don't go

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for long words, use plain language, but use it well.

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And I think that's what we should be doing

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with students identifying the language that they have

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and showing them how they can use that language

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for powerful effects to have an impact on the reader.

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Um, for example,

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we don't get children often talking about their writing

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or given the opportunity to talk about the writing

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or the writing of other children.

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Um, and as I said earlier on, the only audience

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for the a writer, child of writer is often the teacher.

17:13.825 --> 17:18.245
Um, and, and some teachers broaden that audience.

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They get 'em to write for other children,

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perhaps younger children, older children,

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which I've done in the past, or write for parents

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or write for the school, governing body or whoever.

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But they need different audiences for writers,

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for their writing, to give them a purpose to, to write,

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to have a view of, how they need to pitch language

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and the message to that particular audience.

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Um, and opportunities just

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to write for the sake of writing.

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I think, rather than it's always got to be assessed.

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