International approaches to writing instruction: a comparison of curriculum in Australia and the USA

Abstract

Being literate empowers individuals to be active citizens and enhances individuals self-esteem, self-confidence, and independence. In today’s society, literacy requires much more than alphabetic knowledge. Curriculum documents provide content knowledge for teachers to refer to as they assess and plan for the learning needs of their students. However, they also have embedded within them particular views on what is to be taught and how to teach writing. In this paper, we analyse how the teaching and learning of writing is represented in the official (intended) English curriculum standards of the USA, the state of Virginia, and Australia, in New South Wales. Using content analysis, we analysed the standards for the approach/es explicitly or implicitly embedded in the writing standards. We found that a skills-based approach was the dominant discourse in both US and Australian intended curricula. A process approach was present much more in the Virginia standards than NSW, while a genre approach was more prominent in NSW curricula than Virginia. The creative and critical approaches were less present in both countries. We acknowledge that the enacted curriculum may differ to that of the intended official curriculum as teachers bring their own interpretations to the official curriculum documents.

Writing instruction for social justice: an investigation into the components of a teacher preparation course

“…Ivanič (2004) emphasises that writing instruction should encompass all discourses, all of which translate into practical approaches. However ‘researchers have classified the various approaches in different ways…Three approaches are common across all these researchers: skills, process, and genre, with the socially and critically oriented approaches being included but labelled differently’ (Zammit et al, 2022, p. 3).…”

The Effectiveness of the Short Story Writing Program in Developing Students' Creative Writing Skills

“…Creative writing is also able to encourage students to be able to express creative ideas, originality in various forms of creative writing including poetry, short stories, anecdotes, and essays. Creative writing is a skill that cannot be underestimated (Jandrić et al, 2022;Zammit et al, 2022). This competency must be supported by the right program, model or method so that each student's creative writing skills are trained because writing is a skill that requires regular intense practice.…”