Introducing writing protocols in 6 th graders, a comparative account.

1. Introducing writing protocols in 6th graders, a comparative account. Geladari Athina, Mastrothanasis Konstantinos• We chose the following thematic ax from the face to face session topics “Literacy for the 21st Century: Meeting the Needs of Diverse Learners in the Classroom”. The main reason was that we were seeking an effective way of correcting our pupils that wouldn’t exclude creativity from the part of the pupils. • As we both are teachers of 6th grade, but in different cities in Greece, we decided to engage in introducing writing protocols to our pupils. 1

2. Connections with Colleagues • We were enthusiastic about this new way of correction, that moves further from underlining all kinds of mistakes and marking almost the whole paper, generating discouraging feelings to children. • Most colleagues agreed that this may be a more effective way of correcting but doubted the long-term orthographic/grammar/syntax development of pupils. They were convinced to try it and see whether they would establish writing protocols or go back to traditional correction. • The next step was to hold a meeting at school with parents to inform them about this change we were about, so that we would gain their cooperation and support. • We presented to pupils the way that their writings will be corrected from now on. They were excited and marked that their stress is someway eliminated. We decided to spend 2 hours weekly to this intervention that lasted about 15 weeks. On the first hour the pupils had to write a task according to the language lesson and had to pay attention on different parts every time (formal/informal letter conventions, use of advanced vocabulary, summary, use of compound words, subordinate clauses, passive voice, making comics) 2

3. Successes • We kept diary about this experience so as to remember pupils’ successes, reflect on the procedure and self-evaluate in terms of progress. Some of the accomplishments were the following: • Pupils at first were very sever on their judgment on their peers’ writings highlighting every detail that seemed wrong to them (cold feedback), while indicating very good few points (hot feedback). This hurt some pupils and made us reconsider if we would keep on with the protocol. After a period of 5 weeks this offensive attitude started to smoothen, with the hot comments outnumbering the cold ones. • The public exposure of pupils thoughts, emotions, self expression, helped pupils become a team, fights during class and break were limited and the hot feedback raised the self esteem of the introvert pupils. • Both teachers indicated pupils’ development. We kept statistics to observe the advance, if there would be such, and we were delighted concluding that the previously poor writers now achieved more and better. For example, pupils who used to write irrelevant with the topic thoughts, now focused on the specific goal of each writing. Orthographic development as well as keeping writing conventions were also observed. • Finally, our role as teacher was upgraded, from a vicious judge to a helpful partner. 3

4. Challenges • As mentioned above, pupils’ inexperience with cooperative correction and commenting on someone other’s writing, created some conflicts, jokes and verbal attacks. After every pupils was exposed to cold feedback, they realized that they had to be more discrete and less strict. • Colleagues at school eventually abandoned the systematical use of writing protocols, but some said that they differentiated the procedure devoting less time on it and in shorter writings. 4

5. Next Steps • We are definite to keep this method in correcting writing. • Spend more time to familiarize pupils with the procedure and less time in cold feedback at the initiative phase at least, so as the pupils wont be discouraged. • Emphasize on the development of pupils in order to persuade other teachers try writing protocols. 5