Scaffolding for Success

Scaffolding for Success: Strategies for Supporting Writing Development

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Scaffolding for Success

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Scaffolding for Success: Strategies for Supporting Writing Development

Began with a discussion of Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). What a student can do on his/her own versus what he or she can do with the help of a master…apprentices and masters.

Janet Schiavone—Linguistically diverse students.

They don’t always have the same cultural context.

Must activate prior knowledge

Teachers need to be sensitive to this.

As an example, she showed us an “opaque” text. A student had written about doing laundry, but from the student’s writing, it was very difficult to determine that they were actually talking about doing laundry. You could only tell from the context clues, but without knowing the context, as some of our second language learners may not, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make sense of what had been written.

Language Acquisition:
Teachers confuse Basic Interpersonal Communication (BIC) with Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). Teachers are often frustrated when they hear their ESL students speaking fluent English with their peers but yet cannot understand what’s happening in their classrooms. This is because acquiring BIC takes about two years. Acquiring CALP takes more like 5-7 years. It, of course, doesn’t take as long if the student was fluent and *literate* in their first language.

Effective Strategies that Help:
1. Writing as a Process-when students and teachers view writing as a process of drafts and closer approximations to correctness, the pressure is taken off of second language learners to get it right the first time.
2. Personal Writing-having students write about the things they know gives them an opportunity to be a success *at something*. It allows them to see themselves as writers. (Link takes you to a hand-out that helps scaffolding student writing)
3. Generating Vocabulary-if students can generate vocabulary *before* they write, their writing is more fluent. If the writing and vocabulary is done in context, the writing is more fluent because English is such a highly contextual language. (link takes you to a site that has many links of interest)

Ways to do this:
Janet Allen’s Words, Words, Words.

Create Linear Arrays where you have words with opposite meanings on each end of the array and varying meanings in between. Click here for an example of what this looks like.

Words Worth Remembering where students create lists of frequently used words or words that they need to incorporate into their vocabulary.

Word Storming-before writing, the class should brainstorm words about the topic. It’s a variation on the personal dictionary except the whole class has the same dictionary.

Gordon Brown
Socratic Seminar-Linda Treadwell
Demonstrated a Socratic seminar for us…asked a question about teacher retention. Of three factors, what would increase teacher retention? Then the Socratic method was demonstrated.

Teacher as observer. When Socratic seminars are working properly, the teacher is just the observer. The teacher should only step in if the discussion is going badly.

Brown might use seminars as a final wrap-up activity. Usually used as a unit wrap up, but it can also be used at the beginning of a unit, before students start writing on a topic. Socratic seminars allow students to “hash” out topics and details, to firm things up before they begin writing. Used as a form of pre-writing.

Gives an example of how it is used with the books he teaches: TKAM and WBP (why can't I remember what this book title is?)

Talked about a metaphor for writing: Monster-super hero
Monster—lightning bolt/potion—madman/superhero—human judge
Writing not a linear process.

Formulas for the non-writers. Helps students with organization. Gives them a progression and a starting point. Emphasis on “starting point”. When students no longer need the formula, they shed it. They move on to more complex writing when they are ready to do so (but what happens when they are not ready to *ever* move on?) Presenter emphasized again and again to not get stuck on the five paragraph essay. *I tried to find sites that viewed formulaic writing in a positive light, but I couldn't find any. Click here for several sites that talk about the dangers of formulaic writing)

Suggests incorporating web-folios as the writing in such a context is easier to manage.

Linda Harrahan
Responding effectively and meaningfully to student writing in order to lead to revision on the part of the student.
See pages 7 & 8 in the packet. Scaffolding steps needed to teach students how to be a responder (as a note, we noted to try something 12-15 times in order to get comfortable with that activity…not necessarily proficient, but comfortable)
See pages 9-10 in the packet for revision.
You need an atmosphere of trust and respect in the classroom in order to create a community of writers.

Activity:
1. Give students a topic to think about (in our activity it had to do with what students coming out of a teacher preparation program needed to be able to do).
2. Students will brainstorm a list. (short phrases or words)
3. Have them categorize the list and put the categories on index cards.
4. Once they have the categories, have them expand the items on the list using post-it notes. (sentences)
5. Do an inner/outer circle activity where students exchange one card and make comments, ask questions. Remarks can be written directly on the post-its. (Beginning to get at revision because students are forced to work with ideas and content because that’s all they have)

To be used in a different way, students can use the post-it notes instead of an outline. The post-its can be moved around and manipulated. They can be easily rearranged or deleted; things can be added, depending on what the particular student and his or her paper needs at that time.

Karen Mackall-teaches AP Language (11th graders), although her classes are open enrollment so any and all students can take the class…great diversity of students)

See pg 11 of the packet. Focuses on incorporating the metaphor into creative writing. Extended metaphor in narrative. In her class, students work with a piece by Richard Bach, using it as their exemplar.

Creating a T-chart-one side is the specific diction from the piece students are examining; the other side is the student’s independent analysis of that specific diction. Students can begin to look at the extended metaphor and seeing how the author incorporates it into the writing. (level one of the scaffold)

From there, have students begin to explicitly examine the metaphor and how it works in the piece. (level two of the scaffold)

Once the metaphor has been examined, have students begin to look at and write about the moment of narrative epiphany. See page 18 in the packet. (Level three of the scaffold)

Essentials or “The Origin”. In this level of the scaffold, students begin to think about their own writing and narrative. Students will be telling a personal story, and for that, they will need to choose their metaphor. They need an object, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be related to the story. They will some how need to figure out a way to work the object into their narrative. (level four of the scaffold)

The final step of the scaffold is to have students free-write

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Last Updated April 11, 2011

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Began with a discussion of Vygotsky and the Zone of Proximal Development (ZPD). What a student can do on his/her own versus what he or she can do with the help of a master…apprentices and masters.

Janet Schiavone—Linguistically diverse students.

They don’t always have the same cultural context.
Must activate prior knowledge
Teachers need to be sensitive to this.

As an example, she showed us an “opaque” text. A student had written about doing laundry, but from the student’s writing, it was very difficult to determine that they were actually talking about doing laundry. You could only tell from the context clues, but without knowing the context, as some of our second language learners may not, it would be difficult, if not impossible, to make sense of what had been written.

Language Acquisition:
Teachers confuse Basic Interpersonal Communication (BIC) with Cognitive Academic Language Proficiency (CALP). Teachers are often frustrated when they hear their ESL students speaking fluent English with their peers but yet cannot understand what’s happening in their classrooms. This is because acquiring BIC takes about two years. Acquiring CALP takes more like 5-7 years. It, of course, doesn’t take as long if the student was fluent and *literate* in their first language.

Effective Strategies that Help:
1. Writing as a Process-when students and teachers view writing as a process of drafts and closer approximations to correctness, the pressure is taken off of second language learners to get it right the first time.
2. Personal Writing-having students write about the things they know gives them an opportunity to be a success *at something*. It allows them to see themselves as writers. (Link takes you to a hand-out that helps scaffolding student writing)
3. Generating Vocabulary-if students can generate vocabulary *before* they write, their writing is more fluent. If the writing and vocabulary is done in context, the writing is more fluent because English is such a highly contextual language. (link takes you to a site that has many links of interest)

Ways to do this:
Janet Allen’s Words, Words, Words.

Create Linear Arrays where you have words with opposite meanings on each end of the array and varying meanings in between. Click here for an example of what this looks like.
Words Worth Remembering where students create lists of frequently used words or words that they need to incorporate into their vocabulary.
Word Storming-before writing, the class should brainstorm words about the topic. It’s a variation on the personal dictionary except the whole class has the same dictionary.

Gordon Brown
Socratic Seminar-Linda Treadwell
Demonstrated a Socratic seminar for us…asked a question about teacher retention. Of three factors, what would increase teacher retention? Then the Socratic method was demonstrated.

Teacher as observer. When Socratic seminars are working properly, the teacher is just the observer. The teacher should only step in if the discussion is going badly.

Brown might use seminars as a final wrap-up activity. Usually used as a unit wrap up, but it can also be used at the beginning of a unit, before students start writing on a topic. Socratic seminars allow students to “hash” out topics and details, to firm things up before they begin writing. Used as a form of pre-writing.

Gives an example of how it is used with the books he teaches: TKAM and WBP (why can't I remember what this book title is?)

Talked about a metaphor for writing: Monster-super hero
Monster—lightning bolt/potion—madman/superhero—human judge
Writing not a linear process.

Formulas for the non-writers. Helps students with organization. Gives them a progression and a starting point. Emphasis on “starting point”. When students no longer need the formula, they shed it. They move on to more complex writing when they are ready to do so (but what happens when they are not ready to *ever* move on?) Presenter emphasized again and again to not get stuck on the five paragraph essay. *I tried to find sites that viewed formulaic writing in a positive light, but I couldn't find any. Click here for several sites that talk about the dangers of formulaic writing)

Suggests incorporating web-folios as the writing in such a context is easier to manage.

Linda Harrahan
Responding effectively and meaningfully to student writing in order to lead to revision on the part of the student.
See pages 7 & 8 in the packet. Scaffolding steps needed to teach students how to be a responder (as a note, we noted to try something 12-15 times in order to get comfortable with that activity…not necessarily proficient, but comfortable)
See pages 9-10 in the packet for revision.
You need an atmosphere of trust and respect in the classroom in order to create a community of writers.

Activity:
1. Give students a topic to think about (in our activity it had to do with what students coming out of a teacher preparation program needed to be able to do).
2. Students will brainstorm a list. (short phrases or words)
3. Have them categorize the list and put the categories on index cards.
4. Once they have the categories, have them expand the items on the list using post-it notes. (sentences)
5. Do an inner/outer circle activity where students exchange one card and make comments, ask questions. Remarks can be written directly on the post-its. (Beginning to get at revision because students are forced to work with ideas and content because that’s all they have)

To be used in a different way, students can use the post-it notes instead of an outline. The post-its can be moved around and manipulated. They can be easily rearranged or deleted; things can be added, depending on what the particular student and his or her paper needs at that time.

Karen Mackall-teaches AP Language (11th graders), although her classes are open enrollment so any and all students can take the class…great diversity of students)

See pg 11 of the packet. Focuses on incorporating the metaphor into creative writing. Extended metaphor in narrative. In her class, students work with a piece by Richard Bach, using it as their exemplar.

Creating a T-chart-one side is the specific diction from the piece students are examining; the other side is the student’s independent analysis of that specific diction. Students can begin to look at the extended metaphor and seeing how the author incorporates it into the writing. (level one of the scaffold)
From there, have students begin to explicitly examine the metaphor and how it works in the piece. (level two of the scaffold)
Once the metaphor has been examined, have students begin to look at and write about the moment of narrative epiphany. See page 18 in the packet. (Level three of the scaffold)
Essentials or “The Origin”. In this level of the scaffold, students begin to think about their own writing and narrative. Students will be telling a personal story, and for that, they will need to choose their metaphor. They need an object, but it doesn’t necessarily have to be related to the story. They will some how need to figure out a way to work the object into their narrative. (level four of the scaffold)
The final step of the scaffold is to have students free-write

Click here for the next session's notes.

Click here to return to the NCTE Convention Notes Homepage.