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Agency and Engagement in Writing

What led to this learning?
During writing, I noticed my target learners and ELL were struggling with formation of ideas, had a very slow pace of writing and needed lots of teacher support during writing time. I gathered student voice and this led me to understand that my target group do not like planning and do not see the purpose in it. They also were concerned that they didn't write enough; that their spelling wasn't good enough and that they didn't enjoy spelling. A third noticing was that my students preferred writing about personal experiences rather that something unknown. My aim was to improve writing fluency, create more agentic learners and create a passion and love for writing.
Summary of learning design:
My learning design was focused around an ESOL teaching strategy - quick writing. I planned to have a set time of 10mins at the beginning of each writing session designated to Quick Writes as a writing warm up. Each day of the week I used the same structure e.g. Monday = A-Z list, Tuesday = pobble365, Wed = tell me a story about a time when... I followed this programme for 5 weeks. I used a variety of picture, written and video prompts to engage my learners and embed the context.
Reflection on Learning Design
After a period of 5 weeks I noticed a shift in motivation and focus during the quick write time. There were less delaying tactics displayed by my learners; a visible increase in the volume of written work; more independence when writing about personal experiences and a more positive attitude towards writing in general. Feedback about the quick writes from my students was generally positive - that they could use their imagination; getting cool things to write about; the variety of topics; it's not too dragged out. They also talked about enjoying the routine. Upon observation, my target learners were more willing to share their writing in the fourth and fifth week compared to prior to this inquiry. Interestingly, half of my class said they wanted more time than the 10 allocated minutes but that would defeat the purpose of a quick write. I asked my students if they would prefer writing about a given topic or them choosing one and they were 50/50. In future I will offer both. Tapping into children's interests and knowing your learners makes such a difference. Overall a very rewarding mini teacher inquiry.
Curriculum Links
Literacy
Agentic Capabilities
Take Action, Self Aware, Determined/ Resilience, Assessment Capable

Link to Evidence

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