Bringing pleasure to reading lessons through writing

If we want to attract children like bees to the idea of writing for pleasure, we must treat our classroom as a field and fill it with the sweetest of nectar – good literature.

As teachers, we are in the profound business of cultivating lifelong readers and writers, transforming our classrooms into vibrant fields brimming with the ‘sweetest of nectar’ – good literature (Young & Ferguson 2020). Within this rich reading environment, one of the most joyous and impactful invitations we can extend to our young learners is for them to write about their reading. It is an act that nurtures a child’s intrinsic connection to a text and their blossoming identity as a writer and as a reader.

The profound connection between reading and writing is well-established, with research indicating that giving children ample time to read significantly enhances the quality of their writing, and allowing them to write in personal response to chosen texts deeply enhances their comprehension (see LINK for more on this).

The power and pleasure of personal response

At the heart of this joyful integration lies the concept of personal response. When children write about their reading in reading lessons, they don’t simply demonstrate comprehension; they give ‘something of themselves back to the text’ (Young & Ferguson 2021). This vital exchange allows them to link what they are reading to their own experiences, feelings, philosophies, cultures, and funds-of-knowledge (Young et al. 2021). 

Unlike traditional, scheme-directed writing tasks that can often lead children to merely replicate a single desired response, inviting personal written responses fosters a dynamic engagement that stretches children as readers and demands much of them as writers. It validates their unique perspective and encourages a ‘playfulness with thoughts and ideas’ that naturally leads to profitable writing (Young & Ferguson 2020).

Children’s personal responses can take many forms: they might write about why they liked a book, dwell on surprising or confusing elements, record what they learned, or reflect on what the book made them think about. This personal response, whether conscious or unconscious, often acts as a ‘trigger for a story, a poem, a piece of non-fiction or some faction’. This organic process is not only simple and elegant but ‘utterly enjoyable’ (Young & Ferguson 2020).

The different ways in which children can respond to a text. No longer do teachers (and children) need to read x30 copies of the exact same response! When we read other people’s ways of responding to a text – it deepens our comprehension of the text too. This is a major benefit of creating ‘an anthology of responses’ (Figure taken from Young & Ferguson 2020, p.94)

Embracing intertextuality

Crucially, inviting children to write about their reading introduces them to the natural and powerful concept of intertextuality (Young et al. 2021). This is the understanding that writers are influenced and inspired by everything they read, watch, play, hear and experience. Children are inherently ready to transform these textual experiences into writing. By explicitly teaching about and encouraging intertextuality, we empower children to draw from their ‘reading history and developing identities’ to create their own unique texts (Young et al. 2021).

Consider Daisy, a real Year Three child, whose story ‘Norris’ beautifully exemplifies intertextuality. She was initially moved to write because she wanted to write about a backpack (she had recently bought a new one and brought it to school). It also came from her hearing A Huge Bag of Worries as the class read-aloud. Style-wise, her story makes use of quirky, fantastical little details from Chris Riddell’s Ottoline books. She also uses some of the ‘voice’ from the Clarice Bean and Judy Moody books she loves reading in class so much. Norris’ magic rucksack had been put out in a ‘yard sale’ – a plot line she has taken from the film Toy Story. Daisy has recently been really immersed in The Worst Witch audiobooks and also watches the CBBC adaptation of it. These books use a more old-fashioned vocabulary and an ‘objective narrator voice’ with lots of speech to advance the plot, and this was the style of writing Daisy was now replicating. She also took the names Sweetpea (from Princess Poppy) and Drusilla (from The Worst Witch) for her own unkind characters. Daisy carries on telling the story of how Norris was going to retrieve her backpack. Norris and Mimosa decide to put up posters, and this gave her a chance to describe a variety of characters and places on the high street. This particular idea came from a book called The Fairy Hairdresser. This is a series of books where the first page always shows a high street inhabited by a fairy tale character waiting for a haircut. Daisy and her two younger brothers are regularly dragged down to the high street by their mum at weekends. Incidentally, Daisy’s mum is also a hairdresser. (Young & Ferguson 2020, p.92).

Practical pathways to pleasurable writing in the reading classroom

So, how can we develop this vibrant connection and invite children to write about their reading with pleasure?

1. Cultivate a beautiful class library: Your classroom should feel like an ‘inviting library’, an additional member of the class, stocked with a wide variety of high-quality literature, including poetry, plays, magazines, newspapers, non-fiction, picture books, and, of course, children’s own published writing. Children should also be encouraged to bring books (and other favourite reading material) from home to enrich this collective resource.

2. Prioritise reading aloud and discussion: Regularly read texts aloud to your class, making time for conversations so that children can react and discuss what’s being read. Use questions that encourage personal connection, such as Michael Rosen’s prompts: 

1. Does this writing remind you of anything from your lives?
2. Does it remind you of anything else you’ve seen or read?
3. Does this remind you of anything else going on in the world? 

It’s this kind of ‘book talk’ that is a powerful springboard for writing ideas.

3. Allow reading time to flow into writing time: Giving children ample time to read is essential, but equally powerful is allowing this reading time to directly lead into ‘personal writing time‘. This natural transition encourages children to make links and write in natural response to what they’ve read that day.

4. Teach the art of ‘dabbling’: Introduce children to the concept of ‘dabbling’ in their writer’s notebooks while they read or listen (Young & Ferguson 2020). This involves scribbling, doodling, and quickly jotting down ideas, phrases, or images that strike them. This ‘low-stakes’ approach helps children overcome the fear of a blank page and naturally generate their own writing ideas in response to their reading. A useful technique is to create two columns: “This has given me an idea!” and “This has reminded me of something from my life!”.

5. Encourage ‘squirreling’: Create a culture where children act like ‘squirrels’, actively searching for and ‘nesting away’ great writing from the texts they read. This could involve noting down ‘spectacular passages’, ‘interesting vocabulary’, ‘unusual ways of seeing things’, or even ‘story openers or endings’ in their writing notebooks. This practice helps them build their own ‘writing toolkit’ as they learn from the master writers they love most.

6. Model the writer’s journey: As reader-writer-teachers, sharing your own reading-writing connections is incredibly powerful. Let children see you draw on your reading to craft your own texts, demonstrating how you borrow ‘literary, linguistic and grammatical features and vocabulary’ from the texts you love most (Young & Ferguson 2020). When a child’s writing reminds you of other authors’ work, share that connection with them; they will appreciate it.

7. Democratise idea generation: Move away from scheme-imposed writing tasks. Instead, guide children in democratically generating a variety of writing ideas inspired by the text you’ve all read together. This empowers children to experience the ‘pleasure of planning their own creative possibilities’ (Young & Ferguson 2020).

Here, we can see a teacher and their class coming up with ‘an anthology of responses’ to their class text. No longer do teachers (and children) need to read x30 copies of the same response! When we read other people’s ways of responding to a text – it deepens our comprehension of the text. This is a major benefit of creating ‘an anthology of responses’  (Figure taken from Young & Ferguson 2020, p.97)

8. Make Idea Webs: Children really enjoy creating idea webs. The idea is simple. You take two characters, two settings and two problems from a collection of books you know and love. You then build a map around them. You draw lines and try to make connections between them to create an original writing idea. It can throw up storylines that you might never ever have thought of! The best thing to do with this lesson is to do one together as a whole class first. Then you can invite children to have a go in groups, pairs or on their own. It’s good to provide some time for children to share the ideas they generated with the rest of the class.

When children are given the time and expertise to respond to texts through their own writing, they become ‘dynamic creators of a writer and reader self-identity’ (Young & Ferguson 2021). They learn to read as writers, hearing writing ideas spring from the page and engaging in a ‘written conversation with the book they hold in their hands’ (Young & Ferguson 2020). This approach to writing in the reading classroom transforms it into a place where children ‘read and write with purpose, precision, pleasure and power’, truly joining the ‘literacy club’ (Young & Ferguson 2020). 

There is immense joy in watching children not just consume stories and information texts, but actively create them – sparked by the literature they love most in your class library.

References

• Young, R., & Ferguson, F. (2020). Real-world writers: A handbook for teaching writing with 7-11 year olds. Routledge.
• Young, R., & Ferguson, F. (2021). Writing for pleasure: Theory, research and practice. Routledge.
• Young, R., Ferguson, F., Kaufman, D., Govender, N. (2021) Writing Realities Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre

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