Writing and language more generally, is influenced by culture and society. Language is reflective of the society in which it was produced; this is believed by Kress (1998). Therefore language learning and writing in the classroom should allow students to practice both jointly and independently the values of community, negotiation, discussion, reflection, critical review, persuasion and argument. Reflecting on these values emphasises the importance of socially valued attributes and skills. Writing is a Sociocultural Phenomenon as social values from the very constitution of the texts we read, interpret, understand and value. Campbell and Green (2000, p. 74) state that in order to empower out students, we as teachers must use ¡§relevant words and structures to meet the purposes of their communication¡K in practical and purposeful manner.¡¨ The

Possessing a working knowledge of functional gramma allows teachers to accurately assess the level of a child¡¦s writing ability and comprehension. Even teachers of very young children can draw upon their knowledge of functional grammar in order to guide the children¡¦s thinking (Christie 1996) and explore the meaning of the text. Understanding functional grammar equips us with the knowledge and skills necessary to deconstruct language and to build meaning. As teachers this leads us to be able to more fully develop students who can build on the meaning of language and reflect upon the nature of such meanings (Christie 1996). Teachers who focus on communication only and avoid teaching and exploring grammar may actually lead to ¡§students being stranded in their interlanguage¡¨ (Butt et. al., 2001. p. 41). Knowledge about language empowers students, and they develop metalanguage for thinking and talking about language (Carter 1990, in Christie 1996) that leads to writing and language awareness.

Scaffolding, according to Hammond (2001, p. 22) assists ¡§students to undertake tasks to form new understandings¡¨ and involves building the field, modelling, joint constructions, and finally independent construction. The teacher leads the students into the exploration of a genre by working on what the students know, to where the students exercises control over the focus genre. The implications of scaffolding as a strategy are that students need support when learning about different genres. Activities must be carefully selected and sequenced in order to build on what students already know and move towards independence. Explicit language must be used so that students know and understand exactly where they are going, what they are doing, and why they are doing it. If students are interested in a topic they are much more likely

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Campbell Green, Australia DECS, Luke Freebody, , Sociocultural Phenomenon, luke freebody 1990, functional grammar, luke freebody, christie 1996, freebody 1990, theoretical principles, decs 1997, principles classroom practices, writing program classroom, students understand, learning write, text type, text text, theoretical principles classroom,