As a school-paper adviser, I used to make learners experience writing news article, feature stories and literary texts. It is also part of their K-12 competencies to write journalistic text, so I considered ‘Genre Approach’ to writing as an alternative activity especially during selection of my school-paper writers and divisional press conferences contest in our district. So I began introducing the concept of journalistic text by showing them a newspaper or (school) publication. From the articles they read, we deduce elements or characteristics of each article, discuss and draft the ideas involve and let them practice writing by following the pattern of the example. The general writing process is of course, a protocol~ draft, revise and edit.

Another approach, Strategy Approach’, that I encountered is following another steps in performing the task especially when school events are held; news writing assignments are distributed, most of the time in pairs or in groups to divide the task equally ~ interviewer, writer, recorder, and photographer. The students are given time to work on their assignments in the classroom, in the ICT Laboratory for lay-out and design of their (class) paper, or at home when needed extra-time for the project.

Along the way of achieving the competency, comes along the publication of a class paper, where using paper-pencil is upgraded to the use of computer applications and eventually publish an online copy of their class paper. This now has become associated with other approaches to learning to write, from paper-pencil to digital writing.

For a couple of years of doing a combination of different approaches, I have learned that letting the students exposed early to the experience would make them excel at the field. This is where Skinner’s theory falls that everything you learn, you learn from behavior; students learn more from (social) experiences outside the 4-cornered classroom. Whatever mode they use to write as long as they are communicating the essence of journalism is what makes writing more meaningful.

“Teachers commonly do, and probably should, combine the best elements of each approach in order to provide the most effective instruction for their students.” https://courses.lumenlearning.com/literacypractice/chapter/6-approaches-to-writing-instruction-in-elementary-classrooms/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCd--udNEEE