Writing 1: Terminology, Ideas And Concepts

Question 1

What are the 11 things children must learn to do before they are fluent writers?

Answer 1

1. Hold and control the pen
2. Correct the shape of letters, upper and lower case
3. Join letters up
4. Select appropriate words
5. Spell them using correct grapheme combinations
6. Space words appropriately
7. Understand and apply principles of sentence construction
8. Understand and apply the conventions of punctuation
9. Plan sufficiently far ahead to construct correct sentences
10. Learn and use forms and conventions for different genres
11. Reading back to correct your own work

Question 2

What is cursive writing?

Answer 2

Joined up handwriting

Question 3

What is an ascender?

Answer 3

A grapheme where the upwards part of a letter exceeds the mean line of font such as l and k

Question 4

What is an descender?

Answer 4

A grapheme which has a portion of the letter going below the baseline, such as p and j

Question 5

What are Joan Rotherys categories of genre?

Answer 5

Observation/comment, recount, report, narrative

Question 6

What are the features of an observation/comment

Answer 6

Writer makes an observation and will follow this with an evaluative comment or combines the two. “I saw a tiger” “it was very large” “I saw a very large tiger”

Question 7

What are the features of recounts?

Answer 7

A chronological sequence of events

Question 8

What are the features of reports?

Answer 8

A factual and objective description of events or things and doesn’t tend to be chronological

Question 9

What are the features of narratives?

Answer 9

A story genre which sets the scene for events to occur.