GOOD TO OUTSTANDING  TEACHING WRITING  GEOFF BARTON

1What we know about writing in English: Ofsted 2009 National Strategies 2Which bits of grammar help in teaching writing? 3So what might you do next? This session …

English at the Crossroads June 2009

The English Curriculum Ofsted says: Many older students complained that the Key Stage 3 curriculum had not been sufficiently challenging or stimulating and that work in Year 7 often repeated what they had learned in primary school. Too many secondary teachers did not know what their students had learned at primary school and were not able to build on their knowledge, skills and understanding. Although Year 10 students were normally given an outline of the GCSE course at the beginning of the year, those in Year 7 were much less clear about the Key Stage 3 programme. All the English departments visited had schemes of work for Key Stage 3 but, since they rarely showed them to the students, students could not see how individual elements linked together and supported each other. To many students, the Key Stage 3 programme seemed a random sequence of activities, such as the reading of a class novel, followed by work on persuasive writing, extracts from Shakespeare’s plays and the study of newspapers. In the less effective schools, the Key Stage 3 curriculum placed too little emphasis on poetry, media, speaking and listening or drama, and did not enable students to make sufficient progress in these areas.

Writing Ofsted says: Many of the lessons seen during the survey showed there was a clear need to reinvigorate the teaching of writing. Pupils were not motivated by the writing tasks they were given and saw no real purpose to them. At key stages 2 and 3, teachers often asked pupils to write imaginary letters or postcards, an activity that many pupils would rarely, if ever, do outside school. This contrasted starkly with lessons where pupils were given a clear goal, such as writing for a real audience, preparing for a talk or helping to plan a film clip. Here they saw the purpose of the task, appreciated the importance of quality and worked with concentration and enthusiasm.

In too many lessons, teachers spent so long introducing the task, analysing a text and talking about the writing that too little time was left for the pupils to complete their own work. Another common weakness was the over-emphasis on technical matters, such as punctuation or complex sentences, at the expense of helping pupils to develop and structure their ideas. Sometimes the teaching focused more on pupils’ knowledge about writing rather than on developing their skills in writing. Each year, from Key Stage 2 onwards, pupils were likely to be taught the features of certain types of text, such as persuasive writing or instructions. Even when they could already easily identify a text’s specific features, they repeated such work, for example, identifying rhetorical questions, the passive voice and powerful adjectives. They would have learned more from being helped and supported to write a variety of extended texts in the particular form, followed by independent work on a topic of their choice.

The standard of writing has improved in recent years but still lags 20% behind reading at all key stages (eg around 60% of students get level 4 at KS2 in writing, compared to 80% in reading). Writing has improved as a result of the National Strategy. S&L has a big role in writing - it allows students to rehearse ideas and structures and builds confidence. But S&L has lower status because of assessment weightings. In teaching writing we tend to focus too much on end-products rather than process (eg frames). We should think more about composition - how ideas are found and framed, how choices are made, how to decide about the medium, how to draft and edit. We are still stuck with a narrow range of writing forms and need to emphasise creativity in non-fiction forms. We need to rediscover the excitement of writing. What we know about Writing … With thanks to Professor Richard Andrews, Institute of Education

TEACHING WRITING How we’ve often (not) taught writing in the past …

TEACHING WRITING Read this opening from the novel “Bleak House” …                    Now write your own opening of a novel.

TEACHING WRITING Write the opening of a story about a major emergency. ‘Some people waste a lot of time and energy attempting difficult challenges, such as flying around the world in a hot-air balloon. Attempts like these are pointless, and benefit nobody.’ Write an article for your local newspaper arguing for or against this statement. KS3 tests 2000

TEACHING WRITING To be truth-full I am for the argument about wasting time and money trying to get around the world in a hot air balloon, when this time and money could be spent on working with medical difficulty or people who are homeless. I feel it is very important to face challenges, as without challenges, the world would be a very dull place. I feel that the earlier challenges appear in a person’s life, the better, as there will undoubtedly be challenges in the workplace or in home life, and so I feel that the people who have faced challenges earlier in life get a head start over people who have not. Level 4 Level 7

TEACHING WRITING You don’t teach writing merely through: Reading aloud Showing models Highlighting genre features Correcting first drafts Lots of bullet-points after the task Explore conventions Demonstrate Share composition Scaffold Independent writing Draw out key learning DEPENDENCE INDEPENDENCE

TEACHING WRITING Explore conventions Demonstrate Share composition Scaffold it Independence Key learning Including ‘bad’ models Show students the process of writing Correct/change/improve Make it collaborative Move from small to larger sections

WRITING WITH POWER Narrative- based writing

TEACHING WRITING The Set-Up BUILDING SUSPENSE Write the opening of a mystery story. Set it at a funeral in a wintery churchyard. √ √ √

TEACHING WRITING Using models Before …. It was a bitterly cold day. Everyone was in black. The cars were black too. There were people standing around in a group waiting for the coffin. Crows were flying in the sky. It was really eerie. bad

TEACHING WRITING Using models After …. The undertaker's men were like crows, stiff and black, and the cars were black, lined up beside the path that led to the church; and we, we too were black, as we stood in our pathetic, awkward group waiting for them to lift out the coffin and shoulder it, and for the clergyman to arrange himself; and he was another black crow in his long cloak. And then the real crows rose suddenly from the trees and from the fields, whirled up like scraps of blackened paper from a bonfire, and circled, caw-caw- ing above our heads. Susan Hill

How would YOU start a biography of a famous writer?

The Life of Charles Dickens Chapter 1 CHARLES DICKENS, the most popular novelist of the century, and one of the greatest humorists that England has produced, was born at Lanport, in Portsea, on Friday, the seventh of February, His father, John Dickens, a clerk in the navy pay-office, was at this time stationed in the Portsmouth Dockyard. He had made acquaintance with the lady, Elizabeth Barrow, who became afterwards his wife, through her elder brother, Thomas Barrow, also engaged on the establishment at Somerset House, and she bore him in all a family of eight children, of whom two died in infancy. The eldest, Fanny (born 1810), was followed by Charles (entered in the baptismal register of Portsea as Charles John Huffham, though on the very rare occasions when he subscribed that name he wrote Huffam); by another son, named Alfred, who died in childhood; by Letitia (born 1816); by another daughter, Harriet, who died also in childhood; by Frederick (born 1820); by Alfred Lamert (born 1822); and by Augustus (born 1827).

DICKENS CHARLES DICKENS was dead. He lay on a narrow green sofa – but there was room enough for him, so spare had he become – in the dining room of Gad’s Hill Place. He had died in the house which he had first seen as a small boy and which his father had pointed out to him as a suitable object of his ambitions; so great was his father’s hold upon his life that, forty years later, he had bought it. Now he had gone. It was customary to close the blinds and curtains, thus enshrouding the corpse in darkness before its last journey to the tomb; but in the dining room of Gad’s Hill the curtains were pulled apart and on this June day the bright sunshine streamed in, glittering on the large mirrors around the room. The family beside him knew how he enjoyed the light, how he needed the light; and they understood, too, that none of the conventional sombreness of the late Victorian period – the year was 1870 – had ever touched him. All the lines and wrinkles which marked the passage of his life were new erased in the stillness of death. He was not old – he died in his fifty-eighth year – but there had been signs of premature ageing on a visage so marked and worn; he had acquired, it was said, a “sarcastic look”. But now all that was gone and his daughter, Katey, who watched him as he lay dead, noticed how there once more emerged upon his face “beauty and pathos”.

SIMPLE STARTERS

7 principles

 Kick- start learning  Don’t aim for false links with main lesson content  Do aim for coherence across starters  Are great for grammar  Emphasise collaboration & problem-solving  Avoid the temptation to extend the activity  No Blue Peter badges

Synonyms: Who can think of most words meaning scary, big, small, nice

Semantic continuum: Think of synonyms for house / toilet / friend Place them in order of formal to informal

It was really cold. The weather was awful. I was walking along the edge of the cliff and I was really scared.

The 15 most important bits of grammatical knowledge needed by effective teachers

GRAMMAR ESSENTIALS (fiction): Sentence variety for effect: simple, compound, complex Multiple narration Plot - dialogue - description Location of the speech verb Direct / indirect speech Figurative language Descriptive detail Point of view

GRAMMAR ESSENTIALS (Non-fiction): Topic sentences Headlines / subheadings / puns Paragraph organisation - main point … illustration … contrast Connectives Tense Sentence functions: statement, command, question, exclamation Formality / impersonal tones Layout features Building an argument: generalisation, supporting points, statistics, facts, quotation

WRITING WITH POWER Factual writing: 8 practical hints

WRITING WITH POWER Keep it brief. Aim for one side of A4. If you must write more, provide a summary box of key points 

WRITING WITH POWER See everything from your readers’ viewpoint: what will help them to absorb your ideas as efficiently as possible? Eg bold, boxes, bullet-points, spacing, sub-headings 

WRITING WITH POWER Don’t overload your sentences. Several short sentences will do the job better than an over-long one … 

WRITING WITH POWER Seven of the 33 buildings in St James’s Square, in the heart of one of the most expensive parts of the West End, display For Sale or To Let signs. The sight of some of the capital’s most exclusive business addresses languishing empty – when not long ago they were snapped up as corporate headquarters – brings home the impact of the recession as financial controllers cut costs by letting out spare space vacated by staff who have been made redundant or exiled to less costly locations. 2 sentences

WRITING WITH POWER St James’s Square is in the heart of one of the most expensive parts of the West End. Seven of the 33 buildings in display For Sale or To Let signs. Some of the capital’s most exclusive business addresses languish empty, when not long ago they were snapped up as corporate headquarters. This brings home the impact of the recession. Financial controllers have cut costs by letting out spare space vacated by staff who have been made redundant or exiled to less costly locations. 5 sentences

WRITING WITH POWER Use short sentences at the start and end of paragraphs: they give the reader clarity … 

WRITING WITH POWER Another concern is cost. Whilst there are many external factors that can affect costs, we do have some control. We should be putting pressure on our suppliers to show greater market awareness, and to engage in a realistic dialogue with us about fair prices. At the moment there is often confusion about costs. It is important to change this.

WRITING WITH POWER Use connectives to signal the direction of your ideas …  On the other hand Despite this However Also Although Therefore In contrast In summary In addition For example Similarly

WRITING WITH POWER Firstly ….    Another strong idea is …   It could also be argued ….   A different approach is …   Finally ….  

WRITING WITH POWER Firstly ….    Another strong idea is …   It could also be argued ….   A different approach is …   Finally ….  

WRITING WITH POWER Be clear about punctuation:  Full stops to signal the end of a sentence  Commas to separate items in a list or create islands of words  Dashes – in pairs – to create emphasis  Colons: signal something to follow  Semi-colons allow you to link related ideas; they add balance to a sentence 

WRITING WITH POWER Avoid clichés (ready-made phrases) Come on stream (get under way / start) A hands-on approach (practical) The jury is still out (is not yet decided) Meet with (meet) Put in place (prepare) Take on board (accept) User-friendly (easy to use) 

WRITING WITH POWER Avoid unnecessary repetition (tautology): Absolute certainty (certainty) Added bonus (bonus) Added extra (extra) Quite distinct (distinct) End result (result) Past history (history) Really excellent (excellent) Revert back (return) 

WRITING WITH POWER SUMMARY

TEACHING WRITING See things as a writer, not just a reader Explore texts actively - meddling, rewriting, editing Demonstrate the writing process yourself Relate everything to effect Talk about grammar where it helps, not as an end in itself Start with small units of writing … then build up Encourage experimentation, risk-taking, creativity Enjoy! GB’s Final Thoughts