Real-Life Nature-Based Experiences as Keys to the Writing Workshop

Abstract

For many years, research has supported the value of using real-life experiences as teaching opportunities (Noobanjong & Louhapensang, 2017; Powell, 2015). This is just as true of teaching writing as of anything else. In fact, when learners use writing (such as journaling) to share their experiences, they benefit in several ways, including their communication skills (Khanmohammad & Eilaghi, 2017). Writing workshops have been shown to be effective approaches to coaching writing at several different levels (Williams, 2014). Such workshops provide the opportunity to reflect on drafts, collaborate with peers and work through the writing process. They are, therefore, a highly effective context in which to integrate writing about real-life experiences. This, in turn, allows students to develop their writing and their content knowledge. In order to investigate the integration of real-life writing practices into the writing workshop, we focused on one important real-life setting: nature. We created a nature-based writer's workshop, Writing in Nature, for students in the upper-elementary/middle grades (ages 10-12). During the two-session workshop, we provided students with a natural setting. Then, we led them in a writing workshop. Results showed high student engagement and interest, both in the topic and in writing. Our findings suggest that using a natural setting for writing workshops is an effective real-life context for increasing engaged time, teaching content, and developing writing skills.

Managing Classroom Using Real-life Experience: The concept of Freedom in Learning Implementation

“…This approach makes the experience of a person as a source of information that is used to increase the knowledge of students (Parsonson 2012;Mepham 2015). Previous studies have proved that this approach is suitable to be applied to practical learning, where students need to carry out real practice of the theory being studied ( Kinberg (2020) mentions the importance of inviting genuine practitioners in the field of writing to teach students (academic writing) in preparing or writing scientific papers. In addition, these findings also support the writings of Noobanjong and Louhapensang (2017) and van den Berg and Dichaba (2013) who mention the importance of real experience from the teacher/material provider as a reference in preparing learning materials that refer directly to the problems students will face.…”

“…One of them is by inviting practitioners (researchers, teachers, or people who are active in writing in journals) as the source and informants in learning academic writing to share their writing experiences (Kinberg 2020). It was because they were able to provide a concrete picture of the problems or issues that possibly occur and were faced by learners while doing a similar activity (Kinberg 2020). In contrast to conventional learning, real-life experiencebased learning is a model, strategy, or learning approach that uses real experience both from the learner himself and from other people who act as sources (Andresen, Boud, and Cohen 1995; Kolb and Kolb 2017; Abuhassna et al 2021).…”