A total of 77 scripts which students wrote on the six writing tasks throughout the year were collected from the six classes of P.5. They were spread over the high, intermediate and low ability spectrum. The work collected was analysed to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses and also gauge the effectiveness of the strategies adopted.
(Students’ uncorrected scripts are shown to give readers a genuine picture of what students could and could not do.)
Students were able to draw on what they learnt in their textbook learning to construct the content of what they wrote.
| Examples of the newspaper article |
|
Lost and Found
Two hikers, Mr Lee and Bruce, were rescued by the police yesterday. The police rescued Bruce and his father at Red Mountain. They received a call from Bruce’s mother at around 8:00 p.m.. They slipped down the slope and got injured.
Bruce and his father went to Red Mountain early in the morning. It was still sunny and warm at first. Suddenly, the sky turned dark, there was a thunderstorm and it was windy tool. Bruce and his father end up sat at the bottom of the slope, waited for help and took was quite long time. They lost the mobile phones and bags, Bruce lost his right leg. Luckily, they were all saved at last.
Next time if you go hiking, you should bring umbrellas, hats or some other useful materious and you should always remember to bring a compass, a mocp and a torch, remember check the weather forecast before the trip, these tips may save your life in dangerous situation! |
Lucky Hiker
Two hikers, Mr Lee and Bruce, were rescued by the police yesterday. On the 21st March, 2006, they, fell down a slope at the Red mountain at about 2:00 p.m in the afternoon.
Bruce and his father went to hiking early in the morning. The weather was sunny and warm. After two hours, the sky turned dark. There was a thunderstorm and it was windy too. Bruce tripped over something and fell down a slop with his father. They lost their mobile phones and their bag. Bruce broke his glasses too. His father broke his right leg and Bruce broke his left arm. After seven hours, the police saved them. They knew that because they got a call from Bruce’s woman.
The police took them to West Hospital. |
Students were able to write in paragraphs and with elaboration with 1) provision of a well-structured writing framework and 2) inclusion of the pre-tasks done prior to the actual writing.
| Examples of Cindy’s email to Uncle John |
Hi Uncle John,
I am excited to learn that you are coming to H.K. Let me tell you what you can do and see while you are here.
I know you like history, so you must visit the Hong Kong Museum of Coastal Defence. It is near Shau Kei Wan MTR station and bus stops. You can see the coastal defence before 600-year history. You can go there by bus. It’s takes about half hour to get there.
If you still have time, you can go to The Peak Tower. It is at The Peak. You can see the views of Victoria Harbour. You can go there by bus too. It’s takes about one and half hours.
It is fun to know more about the Chinese New Year in H.K. too. It is usually in first month of the year. People will watch lion dance and give red packets. People eat radish or turnip cakes too.
Last of all, there are different kinds of special food you can eat in H.K. Among all, you must try egg tarts. They are sweet, round and yummy. They are cheap. People like to eat too. |
Dear Uncle John.
I am happy to learn that you are coming to H.K. Let me tell you what you can do and see while you are here.
I know you like history, so you must visit the Museum of Tea Ware. It is on Hong Kong Island. You can see a lot of teas and tea cups. You can go there by MTR train. It takes 45 minutes from Tuen Mun to Hong Kong Island.
If you still have time, you can go to Ocean Park. It is in Aberdeen. You can see the sea animals. You can go there by bus. It takes two hours from Tuen Mun to Aberdeen.
It is fun to know more about the Dragon Boat Festival in H.K. too. During this festival, you can watch dragon boat races and go swimming. You can eat rice dumplings too.
Last of all, there are different kinds of special food you can eat in H.K. Among all, you must try seafood on the boat in Sai Kung. It is cheap and sweet. |
However, some failed to check if what they wrote was reasonable or not. Below are two excerpts taken from the same writing task:
|
I know you like history, so you must visit the H.K. Science Museum. It is near the MTR station. You can see the exhibitions on topics related to science and modern technology. |
I know you like history, so you must visit the Hong Kong space museum We can see the interactive and educational exhibitions. We can go there by bus, the MTR and the ferry. If you go there from Tune Mum, it takes two hours. |
Analysis
These two students did not pay attention to the first part of this sentence which says “I know you like history” and suggested to Uncle John to go to the H.K. Science Museum and the Hong Kong Space Museum. They simply transferred what they put down in the pre-task to the final writing task indiscriminately. |
Also, students tended to include more details than the topic sentence required.
| Examples of student’s writing on Pocket Money |
|
Many students have pocket money. They usually spend it on buying snacks, books, magazines and stationery. They always save the money in the bank and donate money too. We find most of the students use their money to study and buy snacks. They consider the ideal amount of pocket money is $40 per week. They think it is good for kids to have pocket money because they can learn how to use money and buy things what they need.
We can see that some students spend their pocket money wisely but some don’t. Here is some advice to give. They can use the pocket money meaningfully, such as buy gifts to your friends. |
Many students have pocket money. They usually spend it on games and hobbies like toys and sports. Some of us spend it on studies.
Three of us in our group. Two of us think we have more than enough pocket money and other think we have enough pocket money.
All of us save our pocket money. We consider the idea amount of pocket money is one hundred dollars per week.
We can see that some students spend their pocket money wisely but some don’t. Here is some advice to give. We can spend pocket money for study or donation.
We think it is both good and bad for kids to have pocket money because we can buy some things that we like but some of us may not spend the money. We should use the pocket money properly. |
Analysis
At first sight, the first writing seemed to be better than that of the second as she made fewer grammatical mistakes and her flow of thought was smoother. In fact, it was the second who had a better sense of paragraphing as he made an attempt to group ideas of similar nature under one paragraph instead of putting everything all in one paragraph. Quite a number of students made the same mistake as the first one because they didn’t use the information given in the pre-task, in this case the survey, judiciously. |
Teachers were interviewed in the last CLP meeting held at the end of June. Below were the viewpoints they shared regarding this writing project:
- Marking of the writing paper in the final examination showed that students had more to say in their essays. Teachers felt that students had become more used to generating ideas with the help of strategies like mind maps, questions and discussion.
- The six writing tasks developed were the collective wisdom of the P.5 teachers. Even though there is still plenty of room for improvement and refinement, teachers have something to base on and need not start things from scratch if they have to refine the writing curriculum at school. Besides the production of materials, teachers developed a better understanding of how to plan and implement change on a manageable scale.
- While asking students to write a variety of text-types was considered appropriate and effective, there was a lack of opportunities for recycling and so teachers had no idea if students had developed a firm grasp of how to write particular text types.
- Teachers felt there was an overload of pre-tasks students had to do. While they might be necessary to prepare students, both in terms of language and content, students could easily lose track of the final destination and what they actually had to write about. With more time devoted to the teaching of writing, teachers found they were competing with time to finish other things in the English syllabus.
- Teachers also felt that some of the pre-tasks were too structured and too controlled. For weak students, they just followed the framework given without adding a lot of their creative ideas while for the average and stronger students, they were able to put down more of their own ideas.
|
