Is the traditional appoach to the teaching of writing really working for our students? Why are our students generally scoring poorly in Creative Writing in the SEA exams? We probably need to revisit this approach. Let's think about it. The approach is to give the students the same topic, give them a stipulated amount of time, collect their scripts, decorate their papers with red ink, give them a grade and return the scripts to them without much feedback. Sounds familiar. Mind you, I am not saying that ALL teachers use this method. There may be those who are au courant with the latest research and, therefore, their pedagogy reflects this.
There is much research coming out of America which strongly supports the process approach to writing which emphasizes content and not grammar and conventions. Students select their own topics, they brainstorm, they write a series of drafts, engaging in revising and editing (at this stage emphasis is on grammar and other conventions) and then finally publication. Collaboration with peers and teacher is encouraged and feedback is rich at every phase. The process is recursive. Donald H. Graves, considered the 'father' of the process approach says that this is ideal for students with learning disabilities because focus is on what they know and their self-esteem improves when others value their writing and give feedback. Quite frankly, I strongly believe that writing can improve students' reading, spelling and comprehension. Students have to re-read, they realize when words are omitted because the sentence does not make sense and they detect spelling errors sometimes. It is an approach, in my view, worth introducing into our classrooms.
Culham, R. 6+1 Traits of Writing. New York:Scholastic
No comments:
Post a Comment