Assignment 3: Exercise
Teacher as writer/writer as teacher (40%) 2000 words + or- 10%)
This assignment requires you to investigate thoughts, feelings and confidence about being a writer of yourself and those of another person. It also asks you to explore the knowledge, skills and attitudes that a competent writer needs, in order to identify what you will need to teach your own students in the classroom.
Each week you will be given a journal writing task and are required to reflect upon this on the opposite page. You are to submit all your writer’s journal entries and the reflections accompanying these with the assignment. Give each of your journal entries a title and add them as appendices to your assignment. When referring to each piece in the text, reference the title.
Step 1: Conduct an interview with either:
A classmate: interview and record what a classmate says about writing; or
Another person (e.g. a child who is having trouble writing; an adult who recalls their own experiences of learning to write and their feelings as a writer etc.)
These questions will guide your discussion:
Did the person see themselves as a writer? Why or why not?
How did they develop this perception of themselves in relation to writing?
What processes do they use/go through when they write?
What kinds of things do they write most? Least? What do they like to write about?
What did you think makes a person a good writer?
What skills and knowledge do good writers need?
What supported you best to develop as a writer?
What did your teachers do or not do that supported your development and confidence as a writer?
Step 2: Writer identity: Compare these to your own response to the questions. (1000 words)
About you: Draw upon your own responses to the questions and also what you have learned along the way. Refer to your pieces of writing in your writer’s journal with a particular emphasis on three pieces of polished writing to illustrate your thinking and development as a writer. Incorporate elements of your weekly reflective entries.
About the person you interviewed: compare and contrast what you have said about your identity as a writer and what the classmate/other person told you. Ensure you have addressed each question. You can add other questions.
Step 3: Teaching writing: What you now know that will inform your teaching. (1000 words)
Explain how this emerging self-knowledge as a writer and the writing process, will inform the way you could work with students to develop their writing. Justify your approach with reference to research evidence and the theories of writing (some have been introduced in the unit, but you can research more).
What you need to submit:
Writer identity analysis (1000 words)
Teaching of writing explanation (1000 words)
At the end of your assignment, after your reference list, please add these two appendices:
Appendix 1: Interview transcripts (as close as possible to what was said -transcripts of the questions asked and participant answers to the questions asked).
Appendix 2: Writer’s journal entries and reflective entries- with the three polished pieces of writing clearly labelled and identified. Give every journal entry a title. (please see the attachment for the list of journal tasks and reflections and some questions to guide the writing of your reflections
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