Modelling writing through reading an investigation into teacher rationale for the reading and writing programmes in secondary schools

Abstract

The primary concern of this project was the extent to which teachers of grade seven, eight and nine English in Southern Tasmanian secondary schools, during 1984, consciously sought to develop their students' ability to write and think, through having them write across a range of forms with their concomitant purposes and thinking process, and through using models of these writing kinds from literature. The study considers not only the intention of teachers in this, but also the potential of the writing tasks offered to students for developing their repertoire of writing kinds and of the potential of the literature resources for modelling such a repertoire. Further approaches and foci for investigation emanate from this exploratory study and recommendations are made which, it is hoped, will redirect teachers to attend increasingly both to the range of writing forms they offer students for composition, and to the appropriateness of the literature they select for modelling the writing kinds that they wish students to compose.