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TE KUAKA ISSUE 1 2014 5
It was the third term and the students had been on a trip to the
swimming pools. Holly Moore, the head of English at Pinehill
School in Auckland, set the children a task to write a recount of
their trip. That afternoon she sat in her classroom with a wad
of stories, a red pen and a marking schedule. For the next two
hours she read each story, but as she did, a wave of boredom
washed over her.
“There was no personal voice from the kids, I couldn’t tell one
story from the other. It was ghastly writing,” Holly says.
That was the moment she had an epiphany and realised her
teaching career was starting to plateau and she had reached a
crossroad. Although, she says, her passion for children’s literacy
was still as raw as the day she graduated from the Auckland
College of Education in 1987.
“I wasn’t happy and I was bored with their writing. I thought, if
I’m bored, they must be too. I’ve got to do something. So, I’ve been
on a crusade to increase children’s connection with writing.”
Holly says the crusade began with encouragement from a
friend, Faculty of Education lecturer Fiona Ell, who proposed the
idea of postgraduate study focusing on literacy in education.
“The first essay was a killer but I loved it,” Holly says. I had
forgotten how much I enjoyed the academic side of teaching. I
loved reconnecting with quality children’s literature and it was
timely to remind myself what it felt like to write for an audience.”
Following this first foray into postgraduate study, she received
a Ministry of Education study award, giving her the opportunity to
take a year’s leave from the classroom to complete her masters at
the Faculty of Education.
Holly says motivation also came from her family who are
high achievers. Her father, Ron Sylvester, was an academic at the
Auckland College of Education and her sister is fashion designer
Kate Sylvester who received an honorary doctorate in fine arts
three years ago from Massey University.
Holly’s masters research looked at the influence of digital
media on children’s ideas in writing. She investigated what
resources children used for writing and how they used them when
composing narratives by hand or on the computer.
Holly worked closely with 8 children, in Years 5 and 6, who
were grouped by three categories after an initial discussion about
their use of digital resources for writing.
Despite their differing literacy levels, all of the children’s ideas
were heavily influenced by fantasy fiction, cartoons and video
games – not by the wide selection of other genres and resources
available at home and school.
“As a teacher I think that is wrong. Maybe we are not hitting
the spot with the types of books and other media available?”
She says the children also presented handwritten stories that
imitated the composition of a webpage with icons drawn at the top
of the paper.
“There are kids in the classroom who live in a digital world.
They are beginning to write digitally even if it is on paper,
particularly visually with the oragnisation of the page.”
Despite having a year’s leave, Holly says she couldn’t stay
away from Pinehill School.
“I was still running the readers and writers week and I was at
the school one day a week as I couldn’t let it all go,” she laughs.
Holly started back at school this year and has already
implemented parts of her research into the classroom.
“My conclusion was that the children who were not exposed to
deliberate use of quality literature as models for writing used the
crash, bang magic of the fantasy genre they consumed.
“We have a focus on reading this year, so across the school we
are consciously feeding our students literature. Through reading
to children, and with children, we are making it transparent what
good writers do. We are also trying to widen our repertoire of
resources by opening up the boundaries to other modes such
as the visual mode of viewing and writing. In my own classroom
the kids are juggling ‘Mindcraft’ inspired writing with writing in
response to language experiences, and writing in the style of the
poetry we are studying. Lots of explicit teaching and linking of
reading, viewing, talking and writing.
“I was worried about coming back after a year off but it has
really confirmed that my place is in the classroom. That has been
the best thing about study, that I’m really happy to go back into
the classroom and to apply the things I’ve learned.”
She says the research was the “breath of fresh air” she had
been looking for to help rise above the plateau.
never stop
learning
Crusade to increase children’s writing skills