Big Writing Ros Wilson

Talk for writing big writing Big writing leads on from talk for writing. The idea is to have a session each week to focus on independent writing. This is usually an hour long. It is the teachers choice for the sessions focus. It can be relevant to the weeks work. The teacher can be as creative as they want with it.

Learning atmosphere From my experience, children have really enjoyed this writing hour. They had a tray with lots of different coloured pens - their choice what they used (wonder writing pens!). The lights were dimmed and fairy lights were switched on. Music was played. A timer was put on interactive white board with a flickering flame.

The beginning of the session (20mins) is a chance for children to share and develop their ideas. Warm up games can be played to encourage pupils to use more extensive range of vocabulary, connectives, openers and punctuation - and to develop the confidence to use them in their writing.

Examples Year 6, working on vocabulary - ‘wow words’. Usually, the teacher will mainly focus on the child’s use of vocabulary (or the sessions focus) when marking, and not as much on the other areas. Play a game of pass the parcel. Inside each layer are images (can be objects), that children have to describe. Ideas are recorded on the board (so children do not forget their ideas and can use them in their writing). Images could be - an alien, a planet, a rocket, a tree, a house, two children etc... Children are then to share ideas about the possible characters, setting, story line. Children’s imaginations - many different ideas. Some imagined the found a rocket and found a new planet and met a horrible alien, whilst others imagined waking up on a different planet and the alien helped them get home.