Writing skills

Hi there,

it's the first week of May and our year 6 students are ready to do the Basic Competences exams. They know that this year they will have an extra day to cope with science. This will be on May the 8th. After that, May 9th, they will have Spanish and Mathematics and finally, last day, May the 9th, our students will have Catalan and English language (two listenings, two readings and a writing activity). I disagree with that planning because English is the last day exercise and students will be exhausted  after three days trying their best. 

Anyway, in order to practise structures and connectors I gave an interesting homework to them last weekend. Students had to choose three important personal objects and they had to introduce them in a writing activity. 
I had the opportunity to listen to a group of 26 students this morning and the experience has been very cool. All the students have been engaged by homework and they said that they enjoyed doing it. Amazing, fantastic and wonderful. ;D

By the way, the current English curriculum at Catalonia establishes three competences that students must acquire during their primary stage related to writing. The competences relate to the planning and analysing of texts as well as the production. I think that my students produce and interpret their mates' texts in a properly way. The production of a text requires the application of higher order skills (HOTS), following Bloom's taxonomy and that is what we promote in our lessons through topics that engage and motivate them. That's the way that it works.

A long the school year, and always giving some language support, they have written about:

1. Personal descriptions.
2. Their best friend.
3. Their school.
4. Daily routines.
5. Important women in their lifes.
6. Mobile phones and teenagers.
7. Three personal important objects.

For tips on encouraging children in creative writing, take a look at creative writing page. Worthy to visit it!