Language in Writing Instruction

Enhancing Literacy in Grades 3-8

María Estela Brisk

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000177893
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Accessible and engaging, this book offers a comfortable entry point to integrating language instruction in writing units in grades 3–8. A full understanding of language development is necessary for teaching writing in a successful and meaningful way. Applying a Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL) approach, María Brisk embraces an educator's perspective, breaks down the challenges of teaching language for non-linguists, and demonstrates how teachers can help students express their ideas and create cohesive texts.

With a focus on the needs of all students, including bilingual and English language learners, Brisk addresses topics necessary for successful language instruction, and moves beyond vocabulary and grammar to address meaning-making and genre. This book provides a wealth of tools and examples for practice and includes helpful instructional resources that teachers can return to time after time. Moving from theory to practice, this teacher-friendly text is a vital resource for courses in language education programs, in-service teacher-training seminars, and for pre-service and practicing English Language Arts (ELA) teachers who want to expand their teaching abilities and knowledge bases. This book features a sample unit and a reference list of instructional resources.

1

Putting Language into Writing Instruction Matters:

A Framework for Teaching

Putting Language into Writing Instruction Matters: A Framework for Teaching

This chapter reviews the theory that informs the concepts of language addressed in this book and the way language instruction is carried out. Understanding of the function of language in the various genres, the role of teachers and students in learning to use written language, and the use of metalanguage in instruction are important background in carrying the recommendations of this book.

The last section is an overview of writing development to contextualize language instruction. Students’ writing development is highly supported by instruction, but maturity plays a role. Therefore, teachers need to balance their expectations for instruction with the natural language development of children. Another variable is the level of proficiency in English for students for whom English is an additional language and general level of literacy, regardless of English language proficiency.

Systemic Functional Linguistics (SFL)

SFL, a theory of language that views language as a semiotic resource to express meaning, informs the language content recommended for instruction. Based on this theory, meaning is not carried by isolated vocabulary, but within grammatical structures. The clause is the first level of grammatical structure where “meanings of different kinds are mapped into an integrated grammatical structure” (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004, p. 10). Clauses can be combined to form sentences and whole texts that accomplish the purpose of a particular genre for a given audience.

Language users make choices given the context of culture, which defines the genres and the context of situation, which defines the register. In the case of multilingual contexts, the choice also involves specific languages. The writing practices of a culture are characterized by recurrent forms of texts, called genres, used for specific purposes with specific discourse organization and language features (Martin & Rose, 2008). The purpose of each genre differs and is achieved through the stages or text structure and language use. The register and its corresponding three metafunctions of language (experiential, interpersonal, and textual) have more immediate impact on language choice. In the context of a given situation, field (the choice of topic), tenor (relation between language user and audience), and mode (oral, written, or multimodal) influence the configuration of language choices (Halliday & Matthiessen, 2004; Thompson, 2004). For example, producing an explanation on the cycle of a frog in the form of a diagram for kindergarten classmates demands different language choices than writing an argumentative essay on the value of school uniforms for a general public.

Language Instruction

Students need language resources to improve their writing in various genres typically demanded in elementary and middle schools. These language resources are built in direct connection with the texts students are producing and not in isolation. A continuous, contextualized, and targeted approach to language instruction builds students language repertoire as they mature.

Language instruction has an impact in both writing development (Myhill, Jones, Watson, & Lines, 2013) and cognitive development (Williams, 2004). The impact on cognitive development in particular requires having students study how the language works. Thus, it is not only important to inform students of the various aspects of language but have them as active participants of the study of language and grammar (Williams, 2004).

This book recommends that language instruction is carried out throughout the genre writing units (see Chapter 6). Learning language is more than learning vocabulary. Students need to learn the vocabulary with the new concepts that they learn in the various school disciplines that will constitute the topic of their writing. But vocabulary in isolation is not enough, they need to learn it in relation to the discourse and sentence level context where the words are ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Preface
• 1. Putting Language into Writing Instruction Matters: A Framework for Teaching
• 2. Language to Develop the Topic
• 3. Language to Express Complex Ideas
• 4. Language to Connect with Audience
• 5. Language that Makes a Text Come Together
• 6. Language Instruction in the Context of Genre Pedagogy and Disciplinary Content
• Instructional Resources
• Index