The metalanguage of the 4 X 4 appears to be sufficiently robust to allow teachers and students to engage in the reflective practices that encourage the production, rather than reproduction, of knowledge.
– Functional Language Instruction and the Writing Growth of English Language Learners in the Middle Years
Writers must learn … the features of different types of text, attributes of strong writing, specialized vocabulary for specific types of text, and rhetorical devices for creating a specific mood) as well as how to transcribe ideas into text (e.g., spelling, handwriting, typing, and keyboarding) …
– Steve Graham
Writing is an important life skill which, according to researchers, “develops across the lifespan” and for “some forms of writing, takes many years to master” (Graham, 2019). It will be beneficial for students to learn how to learn writing because they write or will write daily in different contexts, for instance in text messages or social media.
The ideal situation is when students are able to produce rather than reproduce writing which fulfils its objectives. A student reproduces effective writing when this student has seen a sample of such writing, has formed an overall impression of it and attempts to stick as closely as possible to this overall impression when writing. Producing is different from reproducing in that what is produced is different from the sample. To be able to produce, students need an awareness of not just what effective writing looks like but also what specific features make up such writing.
Different types of writing comprise different features. If students know the names of these features, they would be better able to bring them to mind when writing. Then, they would be able to exercise control over each of these features as required for their task and ensure that they have included essential features sufficiently in their writing. The term metalanguage refers to a set of terms (names) to refer to features.
In one boys’ high school in Australia, researchers from a national university and teachers worked together to test if training students to recognise specific features of persuasive writing and equipping them with the metalanguage to refer to such features, resulted in improved writing. They found that students who were trained this way showed significant improvements over an 18-month period. The pre and post intervention writings of 16 students were studied to check for the effectiveness of training. Prior to the training, the average score of these students, was 11.6 out of a maximum of 40. After 18 months, the average became 21.7. One student improved from a score of around 10 to a score of around 30.
To train the students, the researchers and teachers relied on a 4 x 4 table and a way of teaching which has been known to be effective.
The 4 x 4 table explains that language must be used in persuasive writing to achieve 4 purposes and states the features required when attempting persuasive writing tasks, to achieve these purposes.
The 4 purposes are, to express ideas, to connect and develop ideas, to interact with others and to organize the writing into a connected whole (Humphrey & Macnaught, 2015). To achieve these purposes, students must know and be able to use the right features at 4 levels: word, sentence, paragraph and whole text.
The teaching method used was what is termed as the Teaching and Learning Cycle (Callaghan & Rothery, 1988 as cited in Humphrey & Macnaught, 2015). There are three stages. The first is when teachers teach students the required purposes and features explicitly – these are the purposes and we must include these features (names) to achieve them. The second stage is when the teacher and students engage in “joint construction” – they write an essay together or in a small group with the guidance of the teacher. The last stage is when students write on their own making sure to include the features they have learned.
We can look at the first stage more closely.
Students were taught the features required to achieve the intended purposes of writing (as stated in the 4 x 4 table) explicitly with examples from samples of writing. The terms (to refer to features) used in the cells of the 4 x 4 table are technical. For example, to write in a way which invites the reader to a conversation (purpose: to interact with others), students have to, use “concessive clauses” at the sentence level and ensure “claims are supported and rebutted” at the level of the paragraph. To gently ease students into acquiring technical language, a “bridging metalanguage” was used.
To illustrate what a concessive clause is, Humphrey and Macnaught (2015) used a sentence with the following structure, “While X may be true, it is also the case that or it is more often that, Y (contrary to X) is true”. They explained that concessive clauses use contrastive conjunctions such as although to tell the reader that the writer is aware of the contrary viewpoint which the reader may hold. Then, in the second half of the sentence, the writer goes on to rebut that view with her own view – it is also the case that or it is more often that, Y (contrary to X) is true. To teach this technical structure and technical language to students, metaphors (the bridging metalanguage) are used to explain how a concessive clause functions.
The bridging metalanguage makes use of “everyday terminology” to help students remember technical language. In this case, the bridging metalanguage used was, the opening and closing of a door. Students were told that by using contrastive conjunctions at the beginning of a sentence, they were opening the door to allow those readers with a different view to voice their opinion in the conversation (writing to invite readers to a conversation – interacting with others) and then closing the door to that contrary view by explaining why it is either not the whole story or will not fit well to make a coherent story.
As time progressed, it was observed that students began to adopt the bridging metalanguage if not also the technical metalanguage in analysing their own writing and that of their peers. With this recognition, they were also in time able to employ with some success (to some degree of desired impact), features required to achieve the purposes of persuasive writing.
In primary school, students have to write at the sentence level and beyond in a number of test situations. These include, Situational Writing, Continuous Writing, Synthesis and Open-ended Comprehension. Each of these requires different structural features.
Students could first seek to understand the purpose of their writing in each of these situations. Then, they could seek to understand which features are required to achieve those purposes. School teachers do give out exemplars (assignments which have met or exceeded school requirements) to their students.
One way to use these would be reproduction through forming a holistic overall impression. The other way to use these would be to pay closer attention at the levels of the word, sentence and in the case of Situational and Continuous writing, paragraph and whole text for specific features which are applicable across assignments. This is known as Deconstruction and is one of the approaches used here.
Metaphors such as the one about opening and closing doors mentioned above are most useful when they are personally meaningful to the student using them. Students can be encouraged to form their own bridging metalanguage with “everyday terminology” to understand not just the structure of writing but any topic across subjects.
When it comes to learning, it is good to keep the door open.
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