Teaching Writing: Reconciling Policy and Pedagogy

• In Event: Practice in Writing: The Necessity of Theorizing and Doing

Abstract

. Objectives or purposes

This paper examines how uptake of Assessment for Learning (AfL) professional development and attendant resources impact on the teaching of writing, the latter by providing both conceptual and procedural scaffolds (Hutchison & Young, 2011). By examining how elementary educators identify and resolve conflicting advice about pedagogy and policy, this paper problematizes the role practitioners are expected to play as pedagogic change agents and identifies that a richer understanding of the principles underpinning the assessment of writing could provide a more secure knowledge base for developing effective practices.


2. Perspectives or theoretical framework

Research on effective curriculum implementation emphasizes alignment between policy, assessment, curriculum and resources. But Stein and Coburn (2008) indicate that teacher understandings, and the quality of teaching, are significantly affected by the mechanisms used to achieve alignment, including in any community of practice, the nature of the ‘boundary objects’, the presence of brokers or boundary-spanners, and the type of opportunities provided to negotiate new meanings about assessment and writing instruction.


3. Methods of inquiry

This qualitative inquiry employed a mixed methods approach. Open-ended questionnaires about the Assessment for Learning professional support were completed by educators in Scottish schools working with 3-11 year-olds. The teachers reflected on how and why particular resources to support the teaching and assessment of writing had been selected; who they had consulted and how well the chosen resources allowed them to address key policy requirements, as well as the cohort-specific needs of students as writers.

Systematic iterative analysis of the responses determined key themes and issues. These were then explored in semi-structured interviews with a sample of professionals from the questionnaire phase of the study. Additionally, the ‘boundary activities’ that seek to transfer AfL practice to districts and schools were identified from policy implementation documents. The congruence or otherwise of these data with research studies of effective teaching of writing was evaluated.

4. Results
Analysis showed that AfL professional development activities influenced educators’ resource choices and classroom writing pedagogies. The data indicate that professional resource decisions did not match local context needs; there were few subject-specific brokers and few opportunities for educators to interpret AfL activities, this impeded their day-to-day writing pedagogies.

Rather, informal social networks mediated education professionals’ selections of resources and their interpretations and enactments of policy in writing classrooms. Theoretical understanding of AfL principles and their application alongside principles in the teaching of writing were not demonstrated and conflicts with wider policy aims remained unrecognized.

5. Scholarly or scientific significance of the study

This study indicates that policy roll-out cannot assume generic AfL strategies will impact positively on teaching and learning in writing. Promoting such strategies without opportunities to negotiate their role and meaning in relation to research on teaching writing focuses professional attention on pedagogic strategies and resources and diverts attention away from analysis of students’ learning and development in communities of practice.

Author

• Sue Ellis, University of Strathclyde