Teaching writing

1. TEACHING HOW TO WRITE IN ITALIAN SCHOOLS
“Today’s writers, tomorrow’s leaders

2. European skills
The competence in the mother tongue is the first and fundamental
competence between the eight European competences.
It consists in the ability to express and interpret concepts, thoughts, feelings,
facts and opinions in oral, written and multimedia form in every cultural and
social context.
It is transversal to every teaching experience and disciplinary field: the language
in fact "constitutes the first instrument of communication and access to
knowledge.
The written language, in particular, represents a decisive means for the
exploration of the world, the organization of thought and for the reflection on the
experience and knowledge of humanity ".

3. This is why competence in the mother tongue, together with:
 communication in foreign languages
 cultural awareness and expression
 the spirit of initiative and enterprise
 mathematical and technological competence
 social and civic competence
 learn to learn
 digital competence
Are affected
and enhanced
by the creative
writing activities
that we deal with.

4. National indications of 2012 for the curriculum of Preschool and Primary
schools
The indications strongly emphasize the need to:
 enhance the students' experiences and knowledge, which must be the starting
point for planning educational activities;
 implement adequate interventions towards diversity, be it cultural, intellectual,
gender, etc., so that they can be opportunities for mutual enrichment;
 encourage exploration and research, to promote the pleasure of learning, like
motivation, encouraging originality and creative thinking;
 encourage cooperative learning, both as a way to promote the inclusion and
exploitation of different individual talents, and as a tool for developing a social
dimension of learning and work;
 promote awareness of the way one learns, so that each student can identify
strengths and weaknesses, reflect on their work.
 carry out activities in the form of a laboratory to facilitate operations and
participation, involving students in the various phases of research, project
implementation, and evaluation of activities.

5. Learning to write in the first years of Primary school
The teaching of reading-writing is dedicated to the first year of primary school, usually
the acquisition of the ability to read and write in the different characters of the printed
and italics is completed and consolidated during the second year of primary school.
This is possible because Italian is a transparent language, that is, it has an almost
perfect coincidence between phonemes and graphemes, we say that in Italian we
read as it is written, unlike other languages, ex. English, which provide different
pronunciations for the same graphemes, in different words.

6. During the first year we work mainly on the recognition of phonemes and the
association with grapheme. The best method is phonemic-syllabic and is the
recommended method in the presence of children with specific learning disorders.
The association form-sound often makes use of iconic or sound mediators:
drawings that recall the shape or the sound, eg. S of snake that ssssss, Z of Zorro,
etc…
From a key word, we build a short story that allows the child to contextualize their
own knowledge, to enrich their imagination and their vocabulary. From the
beginning the stories, with their logical and chronological structure, motivate and
structure language learning, even in the instrumental learning phase.

7. About pleasure:
the teaching of Gianni Rodari
"Why must we learn something by
weeping when we can learn it by
laughing?"
Gianni Rodari was a teacher and
writer of stories and rhymes for
children translated into many
languages he has left a decisive mark
in Italian culture and schools . His
unique theoretical work, the "Grammar
of fantasy", is a sort of manual of the
art of inventing stories, for and with
the children.
For Rodari, the operations of fantasy
are not evasions from reality,
diversions from serious work, but they
engage the whole personality of the
child, his logical thinking and his ability
to observe and interpret reality. His
Grammar offers us a lot of ideas for
creative writing.

8. Let's examine some of the most effective
techniques.
1. The fantastic combination:
Choose two words at random and link them to
generate different fantastic patterns:
ex. wardrobe and cat: the cat in the closet, the cat's
closet, the cat on the closet, etc. are different
schemes from which fantastic situations can arise, if
treated with divergent thought
2. The fantastic hypothesis:
That of fantastic hypotheses is a very simple
technique. Its form is that of the question: What
would happen if ...
To formulate the question you choose a subject and
a predicate at random, for example: an alien that
arrives at our school ...
This technique not only brings out the life
experiences of children, brings to light their
values ​​and their emotions, sometimes unaware
(acceptance, solidarity or fear, distrust) and this tells
us a lot about the way children have to act in order
to satisfy their innermost needs.

9. 3. Creative error
From spelling mistake, a fantastic story can be born. Rodari recalls a magnificent
example of creative error: the slipper of the Cinderella of Perrault, originally it was
of "vaire" that is fur, for a mistake of transcription became "verre" that is glass.
Rodari transforms the old proverb that says by making mistakes you learn into by
making mistakes you invent.
4. Upside –down fairytales
Fairytale characters, places, recurrent situations that children know well, are used
to invent new stories and often change points of view and conclusions, transporting
the stories into the children everyday life.
 Little Red Riding Hood in a helicopter suggests a new element in the well-known
story;
 If Pinocchio happens to go to Snow White’s house, how will the story change?
 What happens to Cinderella after the wedding with the prince?

10. 5. The toy as a character
Toys and everyday objects that children love begin to speak, act and express a
personal point of view on reality.
6. The child as a character in the story
The child who becomes the protagonist of the story that he invents together with
adults and friends, acts and experiences situations that are impossible in reality
and enriches his imagination and emotional sphere.
7. Playing with stories: endings to be written
An activity that is widely used in Italian schools is to bring a story to an end that
already includes the characters, the places, the beginning and the story. It is often
an exercise to verify the comprehension of the text and to stimulate autonomous
writing by the child, it can be used to familiarize with the narrative structure and
introduce gradually elements of personal creativity.

11. Conclusion
Italian teachers are indebted to Rodari for these precious ideas for. Thanks to his
teaching they are aware that stimulating creative and divergent thinking, enriching
the vocabulary, reflecting on narrative logic (which often includes nonsense in
fantastic stories) serves not only to improve the technical skills of reading and
writing and to provide children with tools and materials for recreational and
enjoyable activities, but above all give the younger generation the ability to imagine
and create a better, child-friendly world, where ideas are not pre-packaged and
imposed by adults.