| -1998: Planning, composing and editing | |
An analysis of the 1998 ‘My Place’ task revealed that almost all students used some form of planning strategy (95% at year 4 and 99% at year 8). Lists, followed by brainstorming, were the strategies most commonly used, but girls used planning strategies more consistently than the boys did. A general lack of self-correction during the Day Two writing process was evident with 43% at year 4 and 24% at year 8 students making no effort to proof and edit their work. The number of spelling errors were similar in the writing samples of year 4 and year 8 students. The year 4 students’, particularly those in the low ability group, showed greater attention in their use of basic punctuation, than the year 8 students, indicating perhaps a greater focus by these students on surface features of writing. High ability students, on the other hand demonstrated good use of a range of planning strategies, and a higher competence in sentence structure. The author of this report believes that there was considerable scope for improvement in planning composing and editing at both levels. |
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| -2002: Planning, composing and editing | |
In 2002, the fourth year of the second cycle of national monitoring, the writing, listening and viewing components of the English Curriculum were assessed for the second time. In each of the cycles there has been a similar expressive writing task over three days. In 1998 it was ‘My Place’, in 2002 a Link Task and in 2006 ‘A Day I’ll Never Forget’. This allows for the comparison of data between 1998, 2002 and 2006. The most outstanding result involved gender comparisons. Although the proportion of tasks where year 4 boys performed worse than year 4 girls decreased from 79% in 1998 to 39% in 2002, girls out-performed boys on 88% of the year 8 tasks. At both levels, girls also showed a more positive attitude towards writing. The Forum Comment July 2003 noted |
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| • | It will help to build students’ knowledge of writing conventions and formats if a broad range of writing experiences are offered to them. |
| • | Ensuring that students have adequate background knowledge to support their writing, and a specific focus or purpose for a particular piece of writing. |
| • | To encourage the incremental improvement of important writing skills, students need to be provided with regular modelling and oral feedback. |
| • | Students will benefit from the strengthening of teachers’ personal skills and understanding of written English and its conventions. |
| -2006: Planning, composing and editing | |
In 2006, the twelfth year of national monitoring, and the third cycle of assessment of writing, listening and viewing component of the English curriculum was undertaken. One of the Trend Tasks in 2006, “A Day I’ll Never Forget” was the equivalent of the 1998 task “My Place”. It was independent in approach with a focus on planning, composing and editing a true story over three days about a personal event. A trend analysis of expressive writing showed a substantial improvement since 2002 for year 4 students and a modest improvement for year 8 students. Although this result is satisfying, the following comment from the report identifies a more pressing need – |
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| The New Zealand English curriculum reminds us that effective writing involves the development of an explicit knowledge of the steps of the writing process, such as forming intentions, composing, drafting, correcting and publishing. Students should learn to understand and use accurately the conventions of written language, especially in formal contexts, and to write clearly and appropriately, in a range of styles and for a variety of purposes. (Crooks, Flockton & White, 2007, p10) | |
The Forum Comment July 2007, stated that writing stories was the most popular writing activity for both year 4 and year 8 students, but boys continued to achieve at lower levels in writing than girls. Although there were overall gains in writing, there was no improvement in the use of writing conventions (spelling, punctuation and grammar). When requested to edit writing, spelling and punctuation were more likely to be altered than paragraphing, reorganizing or extending work. The Forum Comment July 2007 recommended the following priorities for progress in writing: |
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| • | By clarifying the purpose and appropriate style for writing, student engagement in an activity will be heightened |
| • | The importance of the planning phase in writing has to be emphasized and a variety of different methods learnt. |
| • | A focus on the learning and accurate use of writing conventions is desirable. |
| • | The principles of proofreading and editing need to be encouraged and understood. |
| • | Models, instruction, practice and feedback in using correct formats for functional writing would lift achievement gains. |
| • | By providing opportunities and encouraging the use of technology that connects with social and cultural interests, more positive attitudes towards writing may emerge. |
| In 2002 and 2007, the Writing Survey results at both year levels showed that girls were more positive than boys about writing activities. | |
| cont. | |
