Teaching

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Teaching Assessing NarrativesUsing A
Genre-RegisterFramework
Saraswathy d/o Idamban, Mr Stanley Lim, Mr
Nahar Hamjuri B Samsuri
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Current Writing Assessment Practice in Schools

• Initial drafts are often responded to, evaluated
  and edited all at the same time
• Prescriptive Feedback - focus on errors in
  spelling, punctuation, grammar and sentence
  structure
• Vague and subjective terminal comments such as
  Good or
• Interesting story
• Feedback in the form of questions at the margins
  are usually
• ignored in the rewriting of 2nd drafts
  (which are often the final
• drafts)
• Perennial complaint that students make the same
  errors
• Teachers operating within a hidden curriculum-
  implicit criteria

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Current Narrative Writing Instruction

• Brainstorming content, vocabulary
• Independent writing
• Peer editing / Teacher editing of first draft
• Writing of second draft
• Evaluation of second draft
• Third draft
• Focus is more on independent writing
• As many composition practices as possible
• PRACTICE MAKES PERFECT!!

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Summative Writing Evaluation Criteria

• Examination-type literacy (Cheah, 1994, 1998)
• Used for ongoing/formative assessment of P3 P6
  writing
• Evaluation criteria separates language from
  content
• Descriptors are not genre-specific
• Marks/grades awarded to pupils do not distinguish
  between strengths and weaknesses

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Expectations of the EL syllabus

• Students must be able to manipulate different
  ways of constructing and organising meaning in
  texts
• Teachers must have the linguistic knowledge
  associated with different genres to guide
  students in their writing
• Teachers and students need to have a shared
  metalanguage in drafting, revising and editing a
  text

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Genre-Register Framework

• Developed by Macken Slade (1993) in response to
  the genre theory arising out of Hallidays (1989)
  Systemic Functional Grammar
• more explicit, systematic, genre-specific
• Allows diagnosis of students strengths and
  weaknesses

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Aim of the Action Research

• Investigate the efficacy of the genre-register
  framework as an alternative to the current
  assessment framework in assessing narrative
  writing at the primary 3 6 levels

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Research Questions

• Does the genre-register framework allow teachers
  to identify genre-register-specific problems in
  their students narrative writing?
• Does the genre-register framework allow teachers
  to provide more specific feedback to students
  narratives in terms of the stages and language
  features directly related to the narratives
  compared to the current composition assessment
  framework?

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• 3) Does using the genre-register framework help
  teachers conduct more genre-focused composition
  instruction?

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MethodologyParticipants

• 12 teachers from P3 P6
• Teaching service between 2 17 years
• Familiar with current writing assessment criteria
• Familiar with the EL syllabus

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MethodologyProcedure of Data Collection

• Workshop on the Genre-Register Framework

Use of the genre-register framework in diagnosing
students narratives
Lesson Planning Using the Curriculum Cycle
Teacher Feedback
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Findings

• The framework allows teachers to identify
  genre-register-specific problems in their
  students narrative writing
• The genre-register assessment framework allows
  teachers to provide more specific feedback to
  students narratives in terms of the stages and
  language features directly related to the
  narratives compared to the current composition
  assessment framework

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Findings

• The genre-register framework enables teachers to
  conduct more genre-focused composition instruction

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Limitations

• Students narratives were not analysed for the
  types of feedback teachers gave after the
  implementation of the genre-register framework

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Possible Reasons For Positive Feedback on the
Genre-Register Framework

• No composition quota set
• Process vs product
• Use of the Curriculum Cycle towards explicit
  instruction
• Instructional support

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Question Answer