Teaching as Inquiry 2018 - Last presentation to staff

• My Inquiry questions:

With target group from Rm 7

‘Will teaching students strategies to craft their sentences in their writing, improve the quality
of their writing and their achievement level?’

With target group from Rm 10

‘Will reading and writing links provide students the awareness of how to craft sentences
to improve their own writing as authors do?’

Changes I’ve made to my practice:

• Linking reading and writing
• I now make sure students are aware of the audience for who they are writing and the purpose for their writing.
• I discourage students from writing every detail, rather encourage students to hone in on a few ideas for elaboration.
• I ask students to point out which language features they used in their writing e.g. using noun phrases, adjectives, adverbs, compound and complex sentences, complex Interruptors, zig-zag sentences etc
• This makes the students more aware of how they craft their sentences
• I have encouraged students to give peer feedback to each other and respond to peer and teacher feedback / feedforward
• Invited a first time author to come in and explain the process he used to write, edit, proof read and publish his story
• Got the target group to review the first time author’s book and provide feedback and ideas for his next book (The author finished his second book and has requested the group to review it)

• Impact of changes either positive or negative and your thoughts on reasons

Assessment data

- Teacher OTJ at the Beginning and End of the year (Rm 7)

Student	Year Level	Beginning of 2018	End of 2018	Impact of changes
Student 1 An	7	4B	4A	Moved up 2 sub levels
Student 2 Da	8	4B	5B	Moved up 3 sub levels
Student 3 De	8	4B	5B	Moved up 3 sub levels
Student 4 Lo	8	3A	4A	Moved up 3 sub levels
Student 5 Ma	7	3A	4P	Moved up 2 sub levels
Student 6 Te	8	4B	5B	Moved up 3 sub levels
Student 7 Tr	8	3P	4A	Moved up 4 sub levels

- Teacher OTJ Mid year and End of the year (Rm 10)

Student	Year Level	Mid year 2018	End of 2018	Impact of changes
Student 1 Ana	6	3A	4B	Moved up 1 sub level
Student 2 Can	7	3B	3A	Moved up 2 sub levels
Student 3 Fran	7	3B	3A	Moved up 2 sub levels
Student 4 Jus	6	2P	3P	Moved up 3 sub levels
Student 5 Nga	6	3B	3A	Moved up 2 sub levels
Student 6 Ty	7	-	3A	Improved

The TAI is still on with the target group in Room 10. The writing of these students has improved
and they do have an idea as to how to craft sentences. The number of sessions this group has
had with me is far less compared with the target group I taught in Room 7

- Student Voice

- Anita

- Davarni

- Dekorah

- Loto

- Maya

- Telesia

• Ideas for inquiry next year:

Work with groups of students from years ⅚ and years ⅞

Continue to inquire into

• Whether linking reading and writing will improve achievement in both reading and writing
• Responding to peer and teacher feedback / feedforward - will this improve the quality of writing and achievement levels?

I enjoyed inquiring into my practice in teaching writing. I am eager to continue working with students and accelerating their progress.