Last year my school decided to target students from years 1-6
who were reluctant to write and see what we could do to increase
their engagement and raise their performance. These weren’t
students who had learning difficulties that prevented them
writing, instead they were students who were able to write but
just wouldn’t, or would take so long to start that they barely
have completed a sentence before it was time to move on to
something new. After spending time working with these students,
observing and talking with them to try to determine the cause of
their reluctance, and also having reflected on our own practice
as writers, we implemented a number of strategies across the
school to successfully engage them. As I reflect on it now, I
realise they fit into 4 key strategies - Flexible Learning
Spaces - Authentic opportunities to write using Web 2.0 tools -
Explicit teaching of strategies to help students to plan their
writing and overcome writers’ block - Scaffolding of writing in
away that allowed students