PETAA Paper: Joint construction in the junior-primary classroom
This PETAA paper, written by Dr Bronwyn Parkin, features a detailed walkthrough, review and analysis of a guided story-writing teaching and learning sequence, conducted in a class of 25 Kindergarten/Year 1 students, including four Aboriginal students. The goal of the sequence (it was part of a larger 'Deadly Writin', Readin' and Talkin' Project aimed to "significantly improve the literacy skills of the Aboriginal students in our school in a short time" (DEETYA, 1998)) was see how the Scaffolded Literacy pedagogy, devised by Brian Gray from the University of Canberra, could be used to develop the group's understanding of genre construction, decoding and spelling skills, understanding of authors' choices in text construction, skills in critical analysis and construction of texts.
Download the paper here
Key Topics Covered
- Planning for joint construction (what comes first?)
- Dealing with students' suggestions and opinions
- Ensuring a cross-section of students get to share in taking control of the text
- Reviewing what you have learned about negotiating texts with this particular group of students