High Impact Teaching Strategies

Example 2: Secondary – Writing in an EAL class

At a secondary school in central Victoria, worked examples were used to develop simple essay writing skills among English as an Additional Language (EAL) students. The teacher had been using the hamburger structure and co-construction in the classroom to scaffold student learning. However, many of his students were finding it hard to become independent writers. To support the transition from guided competence to independent confidence, the teacher decided to structure a recurrent activity around worked examples. The first EAL lesson every week was dedicated to writing a short essay that recounted the three most important events of the weekend. To scaffold student learning, the teacher initially modelled the steps involved in planning and writing the essay. The steps included writing a list of activities, ranking the activities from most to least important, identifying two fun facts about each of the most important ones, and using this information to write short sentences that were then assembled into a brief essay. The resulting planning notes and sample essay were shared with the students as a fully annotated worked example. The students used this worked example as model for their own writing. Each Monday lesson started with sharing a new worked example, followed by discussion about the process the teacher used. As students became more familiar with the process, the annotations on worked examples became progressively less comprehensive, encouraging students to own the writing process. Students who were still struggling had access to a bank of worked examples. They could refer to the more comprehensive annotations made on worked examples completed earlier in the term. The scaffolding provided through worked examples enabled students to become more independent and their writing skills improved. When the teacher asked students whether worked examples were helpful, their responses were positive. They reported that worked examples enabled them to engage with increasing confidence in what they considered a complex task, and to focus more closely on their spelling and grammar.