D2. Creating Texts
The creation of texts is heavily linked to the A3 strand. Throughout the process of creating texts, students apply transferable skills and digital media literacy, seek feedback from others, critically analyze their own texts, reflect on their use of techniques, tools, and technology, and consider how to improve as text creators. They develop the competencies and confidence to express ideas and communicate clearly and effectively using written language.
At this stage, writing serves as a powerful tool for children to express their thoughts and creativity, and uniqueness while developing essential skills such as organizing ideas, using proper grammar, and understanding a variety of text structures. By incorporating vocabulary development, sentence formation, coherence and the mechanics of writing through printing, a student’s ability to think critically and articulate their ideas becomes more refined and permanent.
In order to draft short texts, students need to know and understand that authors, depending on their purpose, audience and content, choose different structures and that many of these structures have predictable words and phrases to help guide the reader. Educators can begin to deconstruct these common structures and their associated signal words and phrases to aid students with the organization of their idea. Some of the most common structures are: description, cause and effect, problem and solution, compare and contrast, chronology/sequence.
During Kindergarten, the focus was on:
In the 2016 Kindergarten program, the focus is on general ‘Literacy Behaviours’, as opposed to specific expectations. Here are the expectations that are outlined in the Kindergarten Program, as they related to writing:
- The alphabetic principle and how letters are used in different ways
- Understanding that letters are use to make words
- Knowledge that writing is a way to communicate our thinking to others
- How we can write for a variety of purposes
New for Grade 1:
- Drafting short, simple texts:
- Narratives
- Persuasive
- Procedural
- Printing letters and words with appropriate formation patterns, size, placement, and spacing
- Demonstrating a personal voice in their texts, with a focus on using words that express their thoughts, feelings, and opinions about the topic
- Identifying the point of view, including first person, used in their texts
- Making simple edits to draft texts, such as changes to capitalization, punctuation, and spelling
Note: This is not an exhaustive list of all expectations in this strand. For a more detailed view, please see the official Ontario curriculum.
Further Reading
- See Further Readings on the D. Composition page
Suggested Resources
- See Suggested Resources on the D. Composition page
