Intermediate writings about the concepts of “growth” and “development” in 4th grade of a rural elementary school

CASTEDO, MIRTA

París

Conferencia; International Conference on Writing Research Writing Research Across Borders III; 2014

Université Paris-Ouest Nanterre La Défense

We call “intermediate writings”, the written productions of students that go along with, and stimulate their reflective activity when they study a subject, such as the notes taken to remember information, the (re) formulations of an immediate lesson, or the attempts to narrate or explain the studied phenomena, provisional or final (Chabanne and Bucheton; 2002). We have collected a series of these productions from the fourth grade of an elementary in Tandil, Buenos Aires Province, Argentina. The writings aim to have a group of 30 children producing in groups of three, write down provisional and final conclusions during a study sequence about the notions of “growth” and “vertebrate development”. We have the successive productions of the trios, collective productions made under the guidance of a teacher, detailed planning of classes, and film recordings of the work of two groups. The analysis of successive productions allows us to perceive, in coincidence with Claudine Garcia-Debanc (2009), how the oral interactions developed in the collective class aid with the improvement of the productions in the teams. Additionally, it´s noticed how the work on the content of science positively influences texts transformation to get them close to the specific characteristics of informative texts. We conclude with a reflection about the obstacles noticed for the implementation of production situations for intermediate writings.