Evaluation and Differentiation Plan of Teaching

This article discusses the evaluation and differentiation plan of teaching, including teaching philosophy, multimodal theory, and strategies for students who struggle with writing. It analyzes the strengths and weaknesses of Mr. Ross's teaching philosophy, the relevance of multimodal theory in contemporary writing, and strategies for students who struggle with writing due to learning disabilities or lack of experience.

Evaluation and Differentiation Plan of Teaching
Name of the university
Name of the student
Author note

1EVALUATION AND DIFFERENTIATION PLAN OF TEACHING
Teaching
philosophy/ teaching and
learning sequence selected
Indicate:
Innovation and creativity
Year level - 6
Teacher - Mr. Ross
Genre focus -
Explanation
Mr. Ross believes that students learn to write by reading and
read by writing. Individual knowledge and experience plays a
crucial role while producing contents of good quality. He has
considered the ability of innovation while creating texts and it
must be proofread extensively to ensure the quality. However,
he feels it is unnecessary to provide additional training for
grammar, spelling and vocabulary. It will eventually grow
with the advanced practice of reading and writing.
PART A - Evaluating the Teaching Philosophy and Learning Sequence
Answer (a)
As per Mr Ross’s teaching philosophy, learning is a process, which is not possible
without interdependence and interactive sessions among students. Integration of different
cultural and language competence is necessary to understand various lingual perspectives and
it will assist to increase their capability of reading and writing as well. According to him,
learning the language is important and for that vocabulary, grammar and spelling will not
need extra attention. As per De La Paz et al., (2014), it will grow eventually with the practice
of reading and writing. In order to produce realistic texts he prefers to provide readings in
classrooms like newspapers, books, magazines and e-books or relevant internet sources. Mr
Ross considers it as a knowledge enriched environment where a student can explore his or
her capabilities. Creating texts is a long process following levels of framing a draft,
redrafting, editing and proofreading. After executing all these steps, the texts get ready to

2EVALUATION AND DIFFERENTIATION PLAN OF TEACHING
publish. Mr. Ross prefers writing which are creative and consist of innovative ideas yet
encourages group activities.
This teaching philosophy has numerous strengths yet carry weak points too. Mr. Ross
prefers to emphasize the practice of reading and writing instead of enhancing vocabulary and
grammatical skills. Strength is, extensive reading and writing is extremely helpful to gain
lingual competence yet lack of grammatical skills and knowledge of spelling or vocabulary
weakens the quality of a written text. Encouraging innovation and exceptionality is strength
of the philosophy along with that preference of interpersonal dependence and knowledge
sharing is strong part of his teaching philosophy. According to Bazalgette and Buckingham,
(2013), literacy educators have gradually being recognized to address wider variety of texts in
a classroom setting. The conception of multimodality is repeatedly coming in front while
dealing with writing texts in an innovative way. The theoretical framework of multimodality
analyses various forms of communication and educators are accepting this as a scientific
approach for academic purposes like teacher’s training and classroom regime, policy
documents and professional advancement. The theory highlights the important role of moving
images in a digital medium or in a book in enhancing knowledge and learning capability of a
young student.
Answer (b)
Multimodal texts are created to establish a relationship between image and the word.
In today’s world, use of computer has increased and people do not use pen and paper to do
their regular jobs. Web pages are designed with various images and sound which are dynamic
in nature. Words are written referring to relevant images. It has been observed that the visual
characteristics of writing is becoming more dominant day by day. According to Bazalgette
and Buckingham, (2013), students are being comfortable in interpreting multimodal texts and
the meaning of literacy is transforming gradually. According to Mr. Ross, additional training

3EVALUATION AND DIFFERENTIATION PLAN OF TEACHING
on vocabulary, spelling and grammar is irrelevant and only the capability needs to be grown
through practicing. As far as contemporary writing is concerned, there is particular design of
texts, which is very different from a traditional or older book. Although images were
important part of older books, contemporary books and texts are filled with more pictorial
material than they used to be. The synchronization between images and texts were not
relevant 50 or 60 years back. However, contemporary representation maintains perfect
balance of images and writings whether it is published as a book or in a form of a book (Wan
et al., 2014). Considering the young children’s perspective of learning things more quickly
when pictorial materials are provided largely, the phenomenon of including media texts
within the academic curriculum has been widely accepted. As described in Martix and
Hodson, (2014), the influence of digitalization and its socio-cultural importance has been
increasing as far as young children’s experience outside regular academic syllabus is
concerned.
In order to elaborate multimodal theory, it can be stated that it analyses every kind of
communicative form starting from a spoken to a written form of language. It does not care for
advanced vocabulary or proper use of grammar yet it deals with still and movable image,
tunes, body language and utilization of space. For not only literacy purpose, but also the
theory has made its place into policy documents, education and method of teaching in
classrooms (D'warte, 2014). It can be viewed as an extended part of linguistics (Grabe &
Kaplan, 2014). Scholars have evaluated multimodality theory based on the teaching and
learning process in a schooling situation where science and English is being taught. In order
to understand the relevance better few examples can be considered (Nordin, 2017).
Several contemporary texts are now multimodal these days, which combine words
with movable images creating soothing visuals. The perception of people are changing
regarding texts after the introduction of multimodal theory. In recent times, texts exist in both

4EVALUATION AND DIFFERENTIATION PLAN OF TEACHING
the traditional and multimodal forms yet if comparison is done texts did not use to be
multimodal at all. The innovation lies in the use of language in the traditional texts. It has
been argued that traditional texts always have been maintained a multimodal quality by using
sensual language, which used to create a visual effect. Apart from that, the type of font or
page design can also be considered as elements of multimodality. Multimodal texts are
widely available in the web pages and students are being used to texts with numerous ways of
communication. Students can enrich their knowledge and generate various ideas, as internet
is a good source of watching short films, animated movies and well-synchronized words and
images, which are core of creativity. Information communication technology has mastered
the art of combining sound and visuals in a process, which has been proven to be highly
effective on the learning process of the small children when a class of reading and writing is
going on. As per Turkan et al., (2014), the theory is just another way of engaging students to
work on preparing better textual contents. Adding the pinch of visual materials can make the
literacy lesson more interesting and can enhance the performance of reading and writing
better compositions. The multimodal quality of the texts will eventually decrease the chance
of spelling errors, as children tend to remember visual things longer than what they read in a
traditional format (Wohlwend, 2015).
However, contradiction of opinion and confusion can be noticed among teacher
regarding the application of multimodality. During the sessions of personal development
teachers have argued that developing a practice of multimodal setting within a classroom will
encourage them to bring non print texts which has seriously been opposed by many teachers.
In the addition, many of them have shared a confused perception by saying that digital
platforms cannot be used as tool of learning language as it is meant to have fun. Therefore,
even if students bring multimodal texts into classrooms there is always a question of
justification.

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Briefly, the theory does not only highlight the practice of reading and writing in order
to earn language competency, but also encourages various modes of communication like
visual, musical, auditory and gestural (Joshi, 2017). Media educators have been applying this
theory since they have started to learn the language of media studies. Media studies is full of
creative ideas and extra ordinary perception, which can be easily described with the help of
multimodality.
A major drawback of multimodality is that it does not encourage people’s practice of
regular reading and writing. Although the theory addresses hidden insights of textual
concepts, gradually it is influencing people not to do experiments with their capability of
writing compositions (Troia & Olinghouse, 2013). The changes of technological
communications have evolved and with the digital progression children are being confused
which theory they should follow. In this course, the practice of extensive reading and writing
is being lost. As a result, the conception of a particular language is not growing properly.
Rather, children have developed practice of texting each other via social media, playing
online games and preferring non-printed academic material than printed one. Therefore, it can
be stated that according to Nguyen, (2013), although multimodal theory has several
limitations yet it is the most simplified version of learning for primary students. Implications
of these theories can be noticed while designing curriculum. Researches have shown that
when children are provided with multimodal elements, which are animated films or visual
presentation of lessons, they pay more attention than usual (Oh, De Gagné & Kang, 2013).
Better understanding develops and they become more interested in the concept of learning.
According to the response from both the classroom students and teachers it has been derived
that films are equally acceptable as a useful tool just like traditional printed text books and
materials. The conceptual understanding gets better if children are taught with the help of
both the texts and moving image simultaneously.

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However, literacy educators have chosen multimodal texts with good intentions and
considering its wider range of application primary teachers have felt its relevance to use it in
the classroom curriculum. As described in Jocius, (2013), the best results can be obtained
when the theory is applied in a culturally diverse scenario. The language competency of small
children takes time to develop, hence, in order to ensure uniformity it is important to install
digital modes of materials, which carry multimodality (Purcell, Buchanan & Friedrich, 2013).
The confusion among teachers are still present, as soon as the debate will end, it can be
expected the limitations and convenience of the theory will be more critically acknowledged
as far as teaching and learning language is concerned (de Jong, Harper & Coady, 2013).
Answer (c)
Please find the appendix below.
PART B – Analysis of Academic Literature
Students who struggle with writing: issues and strategies
As per the study of Troia and Olinghouse, (2013), the instruction is to follow credible
sources while framing a text in English. The art is to convert the knowledge obtained from
reading into a writing format. For the writers who have been studying English as a second
language, while writing they can face struggle if sources are not followed properly (Genesee,
2014). The art of following the source and writing according might be considered as
paraphrasing which work on simplifying the material from a complex structure. Hence, this
practice is not that scientific if the purpose is to learn the language properly. Several students
confront with difficulty and find the process of writing extremely frustrating as they lack the
competence and cannot apply the strategies like experts.
Writing is immensely powerful as far as communication is concerned irrespective of
boundaries. Before writing a composition, detail knowledge is necessary and if the student is

7EVALUATION AND DIFFERENTIATION PLAN OF TEACHING
not aware enough of the topic then it is not possible to add artistic, political and spiritual
dimensions to the writing. Expressing own thoughts is another critical aspect of producing
good quality text. Students face the difficulty and even experts sometimes due to complicated
nature of drafting, composing, examining and editing. Especially, students who have learning
disability, lack of experience are tend to face complex situation while expressing own
thoughts in a written format. Several surveys have shown that, students who have ability to
adopt high quality instructions of skilled writers are likely to improve their quality of writing.
The challenges are as follows.
 Students with learning disability, who do not have extensive knowledge varied
subjects, face issues while delivering a well-structured written document.
 As they have a tendency to ignore an effective planning before writing, they go wrong
while making the correct approach.
 Lack of knowledge in both the subject and the language initiates problems in
generating ideas to frame a content.
 Students who do not have good writing skill, it has been observed they invest less
time in proofreading, struggle with logical transcription and provides inadequate
number of evidences. Therefore, the content becomes generalised and unrealistic too.
There are certain strategies, which can be applied to produce great quality writings
like that of expert writers. They follow a particular framework, which can be considered as
strategies for students who are suffering while generating ideas and lacking skills to write a
composition.
 The first and foremost aspect, which is needed to be addressed, is students’ perception
on a good quality writing. Students with learning disabilities state that a good writing
must comply with grammatical rules, correct spellings, neat handwriting and several
technicalities. On the contrary, when skilled writers answer they emphasize on central

8EVALUATION AND DIFFERENTIATION PLAN OF TEACHING
idea, theme and main characters of the write up instead of focusing on grammar and
vocabulary because as stated by Mr Ross, language competence would grow with
practice of reading and writing. These technicalities are only parts of the process of
learning.
 The next aspect to be addressed is the correct approach. Several dimensions must be
reflected, when a skilled writer produces a content. It can be easily suspected whether
the written document has followed the framework of proper planning, composing,
examining and proofreading or not by reading it once. Unskilled or novice students
when take up responsibility of writing a document, in most of the cases they do not
follow the framework and end up producing an irrelevant and only information based
content.
 Apart from these two, ability to generate a good content by planning properly is a skill
to practice. After writing the entire content, revising and proofreading is important to
avoid further chances of mistakes. Besides, an inner conflict is consistent in the mind
of students if they are not capable of transforming their thoughts into a written format.
 Another important aspect is it takes time to produce a good quality content. Students
who lack the competence and knowledge do not really spend much time to produce a
composition. Whereas, skilled writers patiently sketches the details of a write up. The
more a writing will reflect logics, relevant information and strong structure, it will an
evidence of writer’s confidence.
Students for whom English is an additional language: writing requirements
EAL/D students are those who needs additional support to enhance their efficiency in
English, as they have not studied English as first language in school and colleges. Australian
students and aboriginal students practice speaking and writing in different Languages other
than English. Apart from that, they may have limited or zero education or studied English as

9EVALUATION AND DIFFERENTIATION PLAN OF TEACHING
a foreign language. As a result, their oral English is not comprehendible. Some of them come
with excellent knowledge of mother tongue as well which helps to plan and create
composition in a foreign language too.
Therefore, in order to prepare them before allotting the task of writing composition
certain requirements are needed to fulfil.
 Students must learn how to communicate both in a formal and informal way using
English language. It may take a considerable amount of time before they execute
their knowledge of foreign language while writing, especially if they do not have
history of formal schooling (Vinyals et al., 2015).
 They must be provided with curriculum, which has been covered entirely through the
medium of English language. Considerable support of educators is necessary in order
to get through the new curriculum and medium.
 Apart from these, in order to express personal thoughts in writings, students must
learn socialization even though there are differences of culture, by using intellect and
new language competency.
 Briefly, development of oral dialect must be done. They must address the differences
between various textual formats and structure of sentences.
Students, who have studied or have not studied at all, are needed to develop a great sense of
spelling, grammar and vocabulary. Otherwise, they cannot be able to read and write. Basic
training on the language is necessary before starting the practice of extensive reading
(Bartholomae, 2013).
Students who
struggle with
writing
Language competence must be evaluated before judging
them for their writing capability. Developing a good content is a
matter of persistence, research, realistic reading and examining in a
proper way. However, if the students can follow the suggestions of

10EVALUATION AND DIFFERENTIATION PLAN OF TEACHING
expert writers the situation can be improved.
English is an
additional language
(EALD)
The case of EALD students are even worse as most of them
do not know the language at all. Lingual competence can be
noticed whoever has studied it as s second language or have a
great knowledge in their vernacular language yet occasionally
students face difficulty to present own experience in a foreign
language. Therefore, not only reading and writing, additional
training on grammatical aspects will be helpful for them to attain
better knowledge.
Part C– DIFFERENTIATION PLAN
Teaching and Learning Sequence - Year 6
Classroom teacher: Mr Ross
Writing Focus: Explanation
Teaching Philosophy
Mr Ross is a Year 6 teacher who believes that learning language (speaking, listening,
reading, writing) should be done interactively and interdependently, not separately. As he
says “We can speak what we hear, we can read what we can write what we can read.” From
this whole-language approach to writing and reading, Mr Ross believes that students learn to
read by writing, and learn to write by reading. As well as integration of the different modes
of language, Mr Ross believes in cross- curricular integration, where language and literacy is

11EVALUATION AND DIFFERENTIATION PLAN OF TEACHING
embedded within what he is teaching in the other subject areas. So this term, one of the texts
his students will create is an explanation, which links closely to a Science unit that students
are completing, called “Our changing world”. Mr Ross also believes that students should
read and write for real or realistic purposes and he uses engaging texts/events that are related
to students’ lives out of school. This means he incorporates many text types in his classroom
including newspapers, books, magazines, and digital media. Students in his classroom are
exposed to a very text rich environment.
Through their immersion in authentic quality texts that they read, with a focus on
reading and writing for meaning, Mr Ross believes that students learn all of the associated
subsystems of language they need to know like phonics, grammar, and punctuation. As
students read and write they access and use all of the cueing systems: semantic,
graphophonic, syntactic and pragmatic. For this reason he believes that there is no reason to
explicitly teach skills such as spelling, vocabulary or grammar (Henderson, Weighall &
Gaskell, 2013). Likewise, he expects students to understand how multimodal texts make
meaning, rather than teaching about how the different modalities work. Mr Ross’s teaching
focus is on the way that texts are produced so this means a focus on teaching the processes
that proficient writers use when creating texts, such as planning, creating a draft, re-drafting
after feedback, editing, proofreading, polishing, and then publishing. However, less focus is
given to the editing and proofreading processes. Drafts are shared with Mr Ross as well as
peers, and are published in authentic contexts. Mr Ross does not always encourage students
to produce a text that is the same as everyone else, but rather encourages creativity and
innovation.
As Mr Ross considers that students are knowledgeable beings who bring a great deal
to every learning event so accessing student prior knowledge is important. In this unit he
especially seeks to build on their prior experience with explanations as sequential, as well as

12EVALUATION AND DIFFERENTIATION PLAN OF TEACHING
exploring causal explanations in greater depth. Reading and writing work in Mr Ross’s
classroom is very collaborative and supportive, with a blend of pair work, group work and
independent work in reading and writing activities. There is also an emphasis on self-guided
activities, where students research independently, however he has not specifically taught
students basic skills for researching information. Mr Ross believes that students need to
develop literate behaviours such as being able to reflect on their own activities, using oral
language to interact with the texts they read, as well as explaining pieces of writing. He also
believes that students should write on a daily basis for real- life tasks.
Teaching and Learning sequence according to students’ requirement
As far as the selected learning sequence is concerned, the theory cannot be applicable
for the students who have studied English as their second language or have not studied it at
all. EALD students need different kind of attention from educators rather than few
instructions on practice of reading and writing. Mr. Ross cannot ignore the fact that students
with almost zero lingual competence in English should develop vocabulary, understanding of
grammar and spelling to read and write in the first place. Therefore, according to Rahimi,
(2013), along with the practice of reading they should be provided training on sentence
construction, the way they can increase their stock of word and how they can improve their
oral skill of English. Students who have already a competence of their mother tongue can
express inner thoughts better than the rest. It will eventually help them to organize personal
thoughts in a foreign language like English as well. Two different kind of approach in
training is required to train students who have studied it as foreign language and students who
do not have knowledge on the language. However, for both the groups along with reading
and writing a formal training on grammatical aspects is necessary. It should be remembered
that, critical contents of high quality could not be expected as it takes a considerable amount
of time to gain lingual competence and present it as a form of written document. EALD

13EVALUATION AND DIFFERENTIATION PLAN OF TEACHING
students will be helpful if they receive multimodal learning materials, the cultural differences
can be eliminated easily (Sun, 2015).
Now, if the students who struggle with developing a content are taken into
consideration teaching philosophy of Ross can be applied. Although, the techniques of skilled
writers must be included into the curriculum as students tend not to follow a proper
framework while writing a credible content. Struggling students are likely to spend less time
in research, do not plan before structuring the write up, do not evaluate and proofread before
submitting. Moreover, difficulty can be addressed in the areas of presentation where students’
own thinking process is involved. Through realistic reading of various books, newspapers and
web sources as instructed by Mr. Ross can be suggested to them in order to develop their
intellect. Struggling students need to be more attentive rather than being casual about their
inability. Most of them have a conception that oral skill of the language is more important
mode of communication yet they forget the fact that presentation of inner thoughts through
writing can help them to communicate by revealing their personality and intellect. Use of
multimodal texts can be partly helpful as they already know the language yet face difficulty
to present themselves in a written format. As far as training on grammar and vocabulary is
concerned, it will grow if educators can make them engage into realistic readings in a greater
scale.

14EVALUATION AND DIFFERENTIATION PLAN OF TEACHING
References
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on Writing (pp. 45-68). Routledge.
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response. Literacy, 47(2), 95-102.
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perspective. Routledge.
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integration. Journal of experimental child psychology, 116(3), 572-592.

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Jocius, R. (2013). Exploring adolescents’ multimodal responses to The Kite Runner:
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Media Literacy Education, 5(1), 4.
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Appendix
Application of multimodal texts Consequences
 Primary school teachers have adopted
the idea of introducing multimodal texts
to increase language competence among
the students who face difficulty to write
a content and considering the cultural
differences, as well teachers have started
to include multimodal learning materials
into the curriculum.
 I believe animated films for primary
students and academic multimodal
lessons help senior students to
understand the concept in an easier way.
Installation of projector at every
classroom is no doubt a contemporary
approach towards teaching process.
 The consequence is the evidence of its
relevance in an advanced classroom
scenario. Children tend to remember
movable image or information from a
video clip or film more than printed
lessons. Therefore, reading and writing
process will be more effective if
multimodality can be introduced into
teaching and procedure.
 Children have responded in a positive
way. Learning from printed texts is
traditional which is less effective in a
culturally diverse scenario. Therefore,
use of films and academic videos help to
generate positive results among students.