According to Britton's model: Transactionalwriting, expresive writing and poetic writing are what they called forms of parallel lines of development in the writing process. Transcational and poetic writing are in opposites poles; in the midle is the expresive writing. The expresive writing is caracterized because is public, have a wider audience and is flexible in the sense that they can be change from expresive to transactional and expresive to poetic writing.
In the way that the author explanied the process, I think this model should apply for all levels of education. Britton said: "A young child speech will be expresive for the very reason that in his egocentrism he finds difficult or impossible to escape...and continues.."A child take time therefore to learn how go respond to the demands of a situation requiring transactional speech.." I have experience these stages with my preschoolers and kindergarden children, when they have intention to comunicate with the world, they grab a piece of paper and draw their name on it, even if they draw some lines, they are pretending they wrote their names, for them all representations of writing have meaning. What a good way to start the writing process with a lot of imagination. Now is our responsability as a teachers to praise them and encourage them to get in involved in the process of writing.
5/30
13 years ago
exactly! and we must plan not only the why but the how we will take this on the journey from expressive to transactional to poetic. As teachers, we must be intentional!
ReplyDeleteI noticed this pride in "writing" when I was substituting at The Montessori School of Pullman--especially in writing their names! Often, they could only write the first letter, but it really mattered to them. I like that idea of starting with what they can do, and then building on that.
ReplyDeleteDo you remember when you lost your imagination? Do you remember when you stopped talking to stuff animals that you pretended were dragons and wizards batteling for the princess? What if we still acted this way as adults? I wonder what our writing would be like?
ReplyDeleteI taught students at the pre-writing stage briefly, and I understand the pride they have when they can do something as simple as making a proper cursive letter. I'm not sure at what age or level of development that they connect the act of putting letters together with recording their thoughts, but that has to be even more exciting for them than merely writing their names, as exciting as that is. I guess the point is that we do encourage, prompt, move them toward those goals, and genuinely have a sense of celebration within our own teacher souls for even the smallest of steps.
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