Interactive Writing: a powerful teaching strategy.

Mackenzie, Noella M.

Interactive Writing is a teaching strategy which provides opportunities for the explicit teaching of both authorial skills (text structure, grammar and vocabulary) and proofing skills (spelling, punctuation and handwriting) as well as reading. Children become apprentice writers who work alongside an experienced writer--the teacher. The teacher and children share the authorship, and ownership, of co-constructed texts. Interactive Writing is particularly effective in the first two years of school although Wall (2008) has successfully applied the strategy with third grade students. 'This strategy is designed to utilise what children already know and can do (collectively), to teach them new skills and provide reasons for writing' (Mackenzie, 2010, p. 27).

The goals

The goal of Interactive Writing is to teach children the skills they will need to become competent, independent writers (McCarrier, Pinnell & Fountas, 2000). For example, through Interactive Writing children learn how to compose, record, edit and publish texts through a process of collaborative co-construction. Teachers teach what children need to learn, making decisions 'on the run' about what to prioritise and what to save for another day.

Classroom organisation

The Interactive Writing lesson ideally operates for a short time (ten to fifteen minutes) each day across the school week. It usually involves the whole class, but the strategy can be used with a small group.

The Interactive Smart Board is perfect for this, but teachers can use chart-paper and pens if they prefer. Children sit on the floor in front of the Smart Board. They each have their own small whiteboard, a marker and eraser (a sock attacked by wool to the corner of the board works as a place to store the marker and as an eraser). Children sit on their little boards until they are needed. The teacher is at the front, with easy access to an alphabet chart and to the 'word wall' as well as the Smart Board. The table provides an example with step-by-step explanation.

The process

Interactive Writing is a co-construction process. The teacher and children share the pen during the process. The teacher takes the lead and does what the children are not ready for and invites children to contribute as appropriate. The teacher 'thinks aloud', modelling and explicitly teaching processes for how to form letters, spell words, add punctuation and edit. The lesson moves at a quick pace.

Koalas

By Kindergarden Green

Koalas live [in] Australia [in] special gum trees.
Baby koalas [are] called joeys [and] they grow [in]
their mother's pouch.
Koalas [are] very good at climbing [and] eat all
[day] long.
If you [go] to wild life park you [can] [see]
koalas [in] [the] tops of trees.
Sometimes  you can [see] koalas dead on [the] road.

What next?

1. Drawings: Some teachers assign children to
create an illustration for the week's text or to
draw something to go with each day's sentence.

2. Publishing: The text can be published by the
teacher--for easy reading and to provide a
correct model for display.

3. Distribution: In some classes an A3 copy of the
published text is displayed in the classroom
or corridor and an A4 copy is sent home with
children to share with their families.

4. Independent writing: Children need time to
draw, talk and write every day.

How effective is it?

Roth and Guinee (2011) compared two groups of students: a group of students engaged in Interactive Writing and a comparison group who were not. Their findings showed that students in the Interactive Writing group outperformed students in the control group on 'ideas, organisation, word choice, sentence fluency, spelling, capitalisation, punctuation, and handwriting' (Roth & Guinee, 2011, p. 331). These results came from classrooms where teachers spent, on average, ten and a half minutes per day engaged in Interactive Writing.

Conclusion

Interactive Writing is a simple but powerful addition to a balanced literacy program, providing many opportunities for instruction, shared literacy experiences and collaborative problem-solving. The strategy prepares children well for independent writing.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

References

Mackenzie, N.M. (2010). Motivating young writers. In J. Fletcher, F. Parkhill & G. Gillon (Eds.), Motivating literacy learners in today's world (pp. 23-32). Auckland: New Zealand Council for Educational Research (NZCER).

Mackenzie, N.M. (2011). From drawing to writing: What happens when you shift teaching priorities in the first six months of school? Australian Journal of Language & Literacy, 34(3), 322-340.

McCarrier, A., Pinnell, G.S., & Fountas, I.C. (2000). Interactive writing: How language and literacy come together, K-2. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.

Roth, K., & Guinee, K. (2011). Ten minutes a day: The impact of interactive writing instruction on first graders' independent writing. Journal of Early Childhood Literacy, 11(3), 331-361.

Wall, H. (2008). Interactive writing beyond the primary grades. The Reading Teacher, 62(2), 149-152. doi: 10.1598/RT.62.2.6

Noella Mackenzie is a senior lecturer in literacy studies at Charles Sturt University, Albury. For the past seven years, Noella has focused on the examination of the relationship between drawing and learning to write and the transition experiences of early writers and writing development in the early years. Her research informs, and is informed by, her ongoing professional work with teachers in schools and her university teaching. Noella has been recognised for teaching excellence through awards at state and national levels. Email: NMackenzie@csu.edu.au

Process                          Example

Day 1                            Kindergarten/Prep in term 1, Monday

1. Determine topic, text type    Discussion of koalas--the children
                                 had been reading about koalas as
                                 part of an inquiry unit.

2. Discussion and suggestions    The children determined that it
for the first sentence--shaped   would be a report--about
by teacher                       koalas--'real stuff' says Jon. Ms X
                                 explained that 'real stuff' is
                                 factual information.

3. Compose then write the        Koalas live in Australia in special
sentence as a shared             gum trees. (Bold letters/words
construction                     written by individual children,
                                 others by teacher.)

4. Some teachers like to use a   Keesha was invited to write the 'K'
different coloured pen to the    like at the start of her name and
children (for example, they      without any prompting from the
may use black and give the       teacher she added the 'o'. Ms X
children a green pen).           showed the children the word
                                 Koala' in a book and wrote the rest
                                 of the word. They had a short
                                 discussion about where they could
                                 find 'Koala' next time they wanted
                                 to write Koala.

5. After each word is added      Sam was good at hearing sounds in
the sentence is read by the      words so Ms X invited him to write
group--in order to remember      live'. Everyone said the word
what the next word will be.      slowly and helped Sam hear the
                                 sounds. Ms X added the silent 'e'.

6. Where appropriate spelling    The word 'in' was taught as a high
strategies are taught on the     frequency word and the children
run (for example, hearing        practised this on their small
sounds in words) and high        individual white boards several
frequency words are taught and   times--checking with a friend and
added to the word wall.          the demonstration provided by Ms X.
                                 Jon was then invited to add 'in' to
                                 the text on the board. Ms X added
                                 'in ' to the word wall.

7. When complete, the children   Stella volunteered to write
read the whole sentence while    Australia' which she wrote without
the teacher points to the        difficulty. She said she had been
words.                           writing 'Australia' at home with
                                 her older brother.

8. Read again with a child       Next Molly wrote 'in' while the
pointing to the words.           class wrote 'in' a few more times
                                 on their little boards.

9. Later in the day, children    Ms X invited Anita to write 'gum'
have time for independent        with help from the class who said
writing following a 'draw,       gum' slowly with Ms X helping to
talk and write' structure        accentuate the /u/ in the middle.
(Mackenzie, 2011). They work     They discussed how sometimes the
collaboratively and help each    sounds in the middle of words can
other. They do not have to       be tricky to hear.
write about the Interactive
Writing topic.                   This spelling strategy was used
                                 again to help Dani write 'trees'.
                                 Ms X added the extra 'e' and showed
                                 them how there were also two of the
                                 letter 'e' side-by-side in the word
                                 see' on the word wall.

                                 The sentence was read again twice,
                                 first with Ms X pointing and a
                                 second time with Gill pointing.

                                 There was a short discussion about
                                 capital letters at the start of
                                 sentences, spaces between words and
                                 a full stop at the end.

Day 2                            Tuesday

1. Read previous sentence        After reading yesterday's sentence
Compose next sentence            there was a lively discussion about
                                 what the children knew about
                                 koalas. Many had discussed the
                                 topic at home and a couple had come
                                 with books about koalas.

2. Repeat processes from day 1   There was dispute over the name of
                                 the special gum tree so Ms X did a
                                 quick search on the internet and
                                 she and the class were able to
                                 check the name of the tree. Then
                                 the discussion moved to 'joeys' and
                                 pouches' and the following sentence
                                 was agreed upon:

                                 Baby koalas are called joeys and
                                 they grow in their mother's pouch.

                                 Ms X taught the word 'are' as a
                                 high frequency word and added it to
                                 the word wall. She quickly revised
                                 in' and 'and'. She showed the
                                 children how to add a 'y' to 'the'
                                 to write 'they'. Adding s' to make
                                 words plural was discussed and
                                 saying words slowly to hear sounds
                                 was applied (baby, grow).

Day 3                            Wednesday

1. Repeat previous steps         Koalas are very good at climbing
                                 and eat all day long.

                                 Ms X revised 'are' and explained
                                 how the 'y' made a long 'e' sound
                                 at the end of 'very' just like at
                                 the end of 'baby'. She showed the
                                 children how to find 'day' in
                                 today' and they did some quick
                                 rhyming with 'day'.

Day 4                            Thursday

1. Repeat previous steps         If you go to a wild life park you
                                 can see koalas in the tops of
                                 trees.

Day 5                            Friday

1. Repeat previous steps         Sometimes you see koalas dead on
                                 the road.

2. By Friday many children       Continue revising and noticing high
know the text by heart and can   frequency words and letter patterns
read along with confidence.      as appropriate to your group of
                                 children. Teaching decisions are
                                 based on the group's needs.