Innovation as Writing Strategy in Danish 1st grade Classes

Author(s):

Peter Heller Lützen(presenting / submitting)

Conference:

ECER 2017

Network:

31. LEd – Network on Language and Education

Format:

Paper

Session Information

31 SES 11 A, Writing In and Out of School

Paper Session

Time:

2017-08-24

17:15-18:45

Room:

W4.24

Chair:

Irina Usanova

Contribution

Innovation and entrepreneurship is entering education policies across Europe. Both as a didactic strategy as a way of learning and as a goal itself. The political-economic motivation is that we need upcoming generations to be innovative and to develop new ideas in a transformed and globalized economy. But how do we integrate innovation and entrepreneurship in the traditional school subjects and how do we do it from the early years in primary schools? This is the main research interest of the project "Hitte På" (www.hittepå.dk) organized by the National Centre for Reading in Denmark.

Innovation and entrepreneurship is since 2014 an official theme in the Danish primary schools’ curriculum and is described as a transverse theme compulsory for all school subjects (Undervisningsministeriet 2014, 2014a).

The Hitte På-project explores how a general theme like innovation and entrepreneurship can be integrated in one of the ‘old’ and traditional subjects in Danish schools and how we can investigate signs of improvement in both innovation and literacy competencies. These are the projects’ two main interests.

Most efforts in the development of innovation didactics are oriented towards older pupils and our work with 1^st grade pupils is rather unique in a Danich context. A major interest in the innovative didactics is the relationship between innovation and literacy skills since the ability to read, write and document ideas and knowledge are taken for granted in all other innovation projects we are aware of. How to work innovatively and acquiring basic literacy skills simultaneously is the project's main interest.

The development of an integrated innovation didactics is inspired by concepts like “Design to Improve Life” (Index 2016) and the four phased model in “Innovative elever” (Olsen and Rohde 2013). They both work with four easily recognizable phases that the pupils will go through several times. In the project we presented three different tasks each with a duration of two to three weeks and in which the classes would follow a four folded phase-model:

Gathering information and formulation of a problem that needs to be solved
Dreaming and developing ideas and solutions
Production of prototypes and adjusting of ideas
Presenting a result with actual value for others

This approach to teaching matches both the descriptions in the Danish curriculum “Fælles Mål” (“Common Goals”, Undervisningsministeriet 2014) and with metaanalysis in writing didactics (Graham and Perrin 2009). Abilities in planning, gathering and developing content and ideas, participation in response processes and revising texts are known as the most effective strategies in the development of productive literacy skills.

The subject Danish in the early years in Danish primary schools has a strong tradition for emphasis on writing as coding and spelling. What this project explores is how a more content and inquiry oriented didactics affects the pupils’ abilities in developing original ideas and in planning, revising and presenting them to others.

We worked with five public schools in the municipality of Kolding in Denmark over the school year 2015-16. Project classes and randomly selected control classes all took a multimodal test in innovative text production in November 2015 and again in March 2016.

Method

To acquire knowledge about pupil’s outcome a pre- and post test was conducted in project and control classes in Kolding. We wanted to find out how the development of literacy competencies can be integrated in the more functional aspects of innovative work and the test itself and the criteria for assesment stress a broad perspective on literacy and early writer’s development (Chrystal and Ekvall 2009; Korsgaard, Vitger and Hannibal 2010). It is a multimodal test that equals drawing and writing and we asses not only orhography but broader criteria such as originality of ideas, links between drawing and writing, use of complex syntax including temporal and causal connections, number of unique words in the text.

Expected Outcomes

Analysis of the tests show two main results: - project classes perform better in innovative text production - there is no clear connection between spelling and abilities in innovative text production (Bundsgaard 2016). In other words, pupils with low scores in spelling often produce complex texts with original, creative ideas, use of causal and/ or temporal connections, use of a variety of verbs, a variety of participants (in both drawing and writing). This has huge implications for the teaching of writing and multimodal text production in the early years in primary schools. The traditional focus on spelling should be supplemented by focus on higher semantic and pragmatic levels. The study shows that those struggling with spelling nevertheless have good abilities in producing meaningful and often innovative content in both drawing and writing and some of them show signs of complex writing abilities regardless of their level of spelling development.

References

Bundsgaard, J. (2016). Rapport om kompetencetest i Hitte På-projektet. Nationalt Videncenter for Læsning. http://www.videnomlaesning.dk/media/2083/rapport-om-kompetencetest-i-hitte-paa-projektet_final.pdf Chrystal, J.-A.; Ekvall, U. (2012). Skrivelyst og tekstkompetence – Hvad responssamtaler mellem ’svage’ skribenter kan afsløre. I: Madsbjerg, S.; Friis, K. (red) (2012). Skrivelyst i et specialpædagogisk perspektiv. Dansk Psykologisk Forlag: Kbh Chrystal, J.-A.; Ekvall, U. (2009). Starka sidor hos en ”svag” nybörjarskribent. I: Bjar, L.; Frylmark, A. (2009). Barn läser och skriver. Studentlitteratur AB: Lund Index (2016): Design to improve life. http://designtoimprovelife.dk/education/the-compass/ Graham, S.; Perin. D. (2007). Writing next. Effective strategies to improve writing of adolescents in middle and high schools. Carnegie Corporation. https://www.carnegie.org/media/filer_public/3c/f5/3cf58727-34f4-4140-a014-723a00ac56f7/ccny_report_2007_writing.pdf Korsgaard,K.; Vitger, M.; Hannibal, S. (2010). Opdagende skrivning – en vej ind i læsningen. Dansklærerforeningens Forlag Lützen, P. H. (2016): Kvalitativ evaluering af Hitte På-projektet. Nationalt Videncenter for Læsning. http://www.videnomlaesning.dk/media/2082/kvalitativ-evaluering-af-hitte-paa_final.pdf Lützen, P.H. (2017): Innovation i dansk som vej til kompleks skrivning (in press), Dafolo Olsen, A. L.; Rohde, L. (2013). Innovative elever – undervisning i FIRE faser. Akademisk Forlag Undervisningsministeriet (2014): Dansk - Fælles Mål, læseplan og vejledning. EMU - Danmarks Læringsportal. http://www.emu.dk/modul/dansk-f%C3%A6lles-m%C3%A5l-l%C3%A6seplan-og-vejledning Undervisningsministeriet (2014a): Innovation og entreprenørskab. EMU - Danmarks Læringsportal. http://www.emu.dk/modul/innovation-og-entrepren%C3%B8rskab

Author Information

Peter Heller Lützen (presenting / submitting)

National Centre for Reading

København V

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