CPL Creating Writers for Life K-6

Jenny Williams and Sandra Rowan discuss how teachers can create ‘writers for life’ in their K - 6 classrooms and encourage students to embrace writing and to enjoy it for their whole lives . . .

“Our focus, as teachers, needs to be on the fact that it [writing] is a lifelong skill that all of us need to be able to use, throughout the course of our lives, in a variety of different ways. And, that is because writing is one aspect of communicating – as citizens in a global world, we need to be able to communicate by computer across to different countries; we need to be able to make ourselves understood in formal and informal settings. . .”

“So how do we get them all engaged? It’s about student engagement. If we offer them choice even if it is as simple as A or B (‘so you could perhaps write an imaginative story about this aspect or you could write a persuasive’) . . . when they have to stop and decide (‘what do I do? Do I want to do this or do I want to do that?’), once they have made the decision they own it. It is really important. The brain research says giving them choice increases student engagement.”

Note for listeners: This episode was originally recorded for the JPL Podcast, hence the references to the JPL Podcast throughout.

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