Oral Writing (writing without pen or paper)

One of the things I really love about Whole Brain Teaching is that it is not just a behaviour management system. The Whole Brain Teaching team also introduced me to a whole new way of teaching different aspects of the curriculum.

Let me introduce you to Oral Writing, a method of writing that doesn’t use pencil or paper. My student’s love Oral Writing, particularly those students who have trouble with:

• Spelling (the student who doesn't want to write a word they can't spell)
• Thinking of something to write about (the student who sits staring into space waiting for an idea to grab them)
• Messy handwriting (the student who really struggles with the technical aspect of writing and finds it difficult to produce something that is legible)

Although I have students who struggle with the idea of writing a story, they are never lost for words if they have a story they want to share with their friends which is why Oral Writing is ideal.

Oral Writing gives students a chance to practice speaking in sentences and paragraphs without committing a word to the page. If they get stuck they have the opportunity to ask the class for help so that they can continue. Oral Writing encourages students to learn how to answer questions with more than the typical ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers. So let me get to the nitty gritty and set out the procedure for you.

Begin by teaching the students that they need to answer my question with part of the question in their answer. Their answer needs to be a complete sentence.

Teacher: What did you do for your holidays?

Student: For my holidays I went camping with my family.

Teacher: What’s your favourite dessert?

Student: My favourite dessert is Chocolate ice-cream

Teacher: What did you do for your holidays?

Student: For my holidays I went camping with my family.

If a student forgets that they need to answer in a complete sentence smile and cup your hand behind your ear. It is the gesture for, “I didn’t hear a complete sentence.”

Once they are able to answer your question with a complete sentence you can introduce the next step, ‘adding and Adder’. An Adder is a sentence that adds more information and detail to the first sentence. The gesture for the Adder is to point pointer fingers at each other and spin them.  

Teacher: What did you do for you holidays?

Student: For my holidays I went camping with my family. (Smile and cup ear with hand if student doesn’t use whole sentence, e.g. student answers with, “Went camping.”)

Teacher: (spins pointer fingers, the gesture asking for an Adder.)

Student: We camped beside the dam on my Grandad’s farm. (gesture for another Adder)

Student: During the day we swam in the dam and at night we roasted marshmallows.

Before they realise it, the student is ‘writing’ a paragraph. All they need to do now is complete the paragraph with a ‘conclusion’. The gesture for the ‘Concluder’ is

waving one hand above the other, as if signalling that play is over. The student needs to complete their paragraph with their next sentence.

Student: Camping with the family is so much fun.

To recap, I ask a student a question, the student answers in a complete sentence, I gesture for the student to provide additional sentences that add more information to the initial topic sentence. I gesture for the student to complete the paragraph with a concluding sentence.

When I introduced this to my class, I started by asking three questions in a session. The initial sentences were about topics the students enjoyed talking about such as favourite things (food, movie, band, sport), places they have been to (Movie World, Sea World) etc. Then I started asking questions about different topics related to the work we were doing in the classroom. “What book are you currently reading?” “What is heat?” “What is Australia?”

When you start to ask questions that the students find difficult to answer they can appeal to their classmates for help. I remember a song I used to sing about a rabbit that ran up to a house asking for help. When the rabbit cried out “Help me! Help me!” I would raise my arms up and down. This has become my class gesture for asking for help.

When a student appeals to the class for help, students who have an idea of what to say next put their hands up in the air. The student listens to a few of their ideas and then chooses one to continue the paragraph.

Teacher: What is a fraction?

Student: A fraction shows how many parts in a whole. (gesture for Adder) The top number is called the numerator and the bottom number is called the denominator. (gesture for Adder) An example of a fraction would be …..Help me! Help me!

Other Students: One half! Three fourths! Two thirds! Four fifths!

Student: An example of a fraction would be three fourths. (gesture for Concluder) To sum up, sometimes fractions are hard to understand.

So that is the basics of Oral Writing. In my next blog I will describe my favourite Whole Brain Teaching strategy, Air Punctuation. I hope you are enjoying learning about the wonders of Whole Brain Teaching and have been able to implement some of the strategies in your own classroom.