English and ICT

Digital Writing – Awareness of changing nature of writing

Activity 1 – Changing writing

1. As an introduction to work on the teaching of writing, we often ask the students to reflect on the range of writing they produce in their daily lives. They are asked to produce a list of writing they have completed over the previous day/weekend. Our aim in using this activity is to raise awareness of the significance of audience, form and purpose in writing, but is also equally valuable in provoking discussion about the nature of writing itself.
   
2. As they list the examples, the students themselves tend to begin to question the nature of writing, by discussing whether, for example, texting should be included in the list. This leads naturally into a discussion of the changing nature of texts and what is meant by writing.

Activity 2 - ICT and the writing process

1. In order to develop students’ awareness of the writing process, we provide the following scenario:
    
   You have seen an advert for your ideal job. The conditions, pay and prospects are a dream come true!!! A word-processed letter of application is required. List all the steps you would take in preparing this letter, to the point at which you post it.
    
   Discussion of the process involved in writing this letter tends to draw attention to various points which have significance for the teaching of writing, notably, to the importance of purpose and audience in engaging a writer in the lengthy process involved in the production of a complete text. It also highlights planning as a significant preliminary stage of the writing process and makes students aware of the tendency to focus initially on composition rather than transcriptional aspects.
    
   However, the same discussion also draws out interesting variations amongst groups of students in their use of word processing facilities. Some use the screen from the earliest stages whereas others prefer to produce a draft by hand and then move to the screen. Interestingly, such differences in approach currently seem to occur across the age range of students, although this may well change in the future.
   
2. Having considered the process involved in producing a word processed letter, the students are asked to compare the steps they identified with those they would take if the letter were written by hand. The resulting discussion tends to highlight that writing by hand is more likely to follow the traditional writing process model identified by Graves (1985). In contrast, the stages are less distinctive when writing on screen, with drafting and editing happening simultaneously for some students. This provides an opportunity to point out the work by Matthewman and Triggs (2004) on children’s on-screen writing which draws attention to their interest in deciding on font and presentation before addressing the content of what was to be written.
   
3. We then explore the facilities offered by word processing packages and their impact on the writing process such as:
    
   ease of moving, supplementing and deleting text
   standard of presentation
   support with spelling and grammar via spell check (benefits and limitations)
    
   This then leads to discussion of other aspects of text production facilitated by the use of ICT. Examples are the use of:
    
   images
   colour
   size of font
   movement
   sound etc etc

Activity 3 - The impact of ICT on language use

1. We ask students to collect a range of examples of their own digital writing, including letters, emails, text messages, contributions to discussion boards, chat rooms etc. They then work in groups to discuss a specific form of digital writing – ( e.g. emails.) They are asked to suggest similarities with other forms of oral or written communication. (e.g. letter, note, answerphone message) and to consider similarities and differences with these texts. They are also asked to identify common features and differences within the examples of this text type in terms of the structure, presentation and language use of a particular type of text.
    
   Discussion of the findings of this investigation tends to draw attention to similarities with speech found, for example, in email, texting and chat, as well as the innovative ways used to overcome the lack of face to face interaction involved. The imaginative use of punctuation, unconventional spelling, emoticons etc are then raised as aspects of the creative use of language to adapt to a new situation.
    
2. The following question is used to encourage students to explore the benefits of incorporating such forms of communication within classroom teaching but also to air concerns about possible drawbacks.
    
   Do forms of electronic communication such as email, texting and on-line chat have any role to play in the classroom? Why/why not?
    
   Responses tend to focus attention on the value of such media to provide purposes and audiences for communication. Students also highlight concerns about the impact of innovative forms of language on children ’s writing across the curriculum. However, the examples of texts they have produced demonstrate the range of forms of writing required in everyday life and this raises awareness of the need for children to develop awareness of the importance of selecting a form and style appropriate to their purpose and audience. It also highlights the value of providing children with opportunities to compare and contrast various texts in order to make explicit the specific features which affect the form and style of the texts they produce.