Critical Questions/Reading Response Journal: Week 11 Children as Writers

How do we learn to write? When do we learn to write? Who taught us to write? How do we making sense of our own writing in childhood? In my own writing experience, surely, “writing” began in my grade one because “arts” did not count as writing in my culture. I started the writing practice with “character copying of Chinese characters” (Wong, 2008, p. 117). I find Wong’s (2008) comment about “when literacy is valued as a measure of achievement in a culture, adults will work hard to ensure the success of their child” really relevant with my writing learning experiences (p. 117). Parents will make sure that their children are able to write proper character in age of seven when they move to grade one. Writing Chinese characters is really the central in children’s writing practice because “[t]he Chinese view of learning places heavy emphasis on orthographic literacy [and t]he Chinese term for ‘learning’ is composed of two characters: ‘to study’ and to ‘practise repeatedly’ (Dahlgaard- Park 2006, as cited in Wong, 2008, p. 118). I will not say this way of learning is a negative way of practicing writing because “within a social construction of literacy there cannot be a ‘right’ or ‘best’ way to learn and teach writing”( Barratt-Pugh, 2007, p. 137). Because writing Chinese character is really complex and it require repetitive practice. However, Barratt-Pugh (2007) also adds “[i]t is more helpful to identify the understandings, knowledge and skills needed to become literate, enabling children to master these in ways that acknowledge and extend what they already know and can do” (p. 137).

                                                                     笑

                                   哭

Take a guess which character means “smile” and which one means “cry”.

When children are practicing writing it should not be just memorizing the way of writing the characters. There must be some understanding of the characters for children to make sense of how to write it and it relates to Dewey’s (as cited in Wong, 2008) comment, he states that “learning begins with an inquiry regarding a problem in the environment, followed by the process of experimentation and reflection until and answer is found” (p.124). We should focus on children’s learning process of learning to write instead of their final product of writing that character.