Category: Uncategorized

Original article: LINK

By Danielle Rylak, Lindsey Moses, Carolina Torrejón Capurro and Frank Serafini

This study is focused on understanding how first-grade students in the USA engaged with writing when given the freedom to choose their own topics, genres, and formats. To do this, the researchers combined the best of a ‘writing workshop’ approach with the ‘genre study’ approach.

A contemporary writing workshop approach

A contemporary writing workshop approach prioritises the development of writing skills by explicitly teaching them through the writing processes. This model is designed to help children not only become better writers but also to understand writing as a purposeful activity aimed at a real audience. Key aspects of a modern writing workshop approach include:

1. Writing as a process: Students are explicitly taught the writing processes – generating ideas, planning, drafting, revising, proof-reading, and publishing. Children are provided with ample instruction and time to practice these stages repeatedly and consistently, allowing them to ultimately internalise these processes.
2. Peer collaboration: Collaboration with peers is a crucial component of the writing workshop. Students work with their teacher and friends to critique and improve their compositions [LINK and LINK]. This social aspect of learning emphasises the importance of communication and feedback in the development of writing skills.
3. Connection between reading and writing: Teachers make explicit connections between reading and writing. By studying books from a writer’s perspective, students learn to identify and emulate components of the author’s craft in their own writing [LINK]. This approach helps students to see that they can apply lessons learnt from their reading directly into their own writing.
4. Exposure to multiple genres: The diverse and structured nature of writing workshop allows students to read, discuss, and write across various genres. This exposure helps them to develop a broad range of writing skills and to understand the different conventions and purposes of different types of texts.

Overall, the writing workshop model fosters a rich, supportive environment where students can develop their writing abilities in a holistic and socially interactive manner. By integrating the study of texts, peer collaboration, and structured practice, writing workshop equips students with the tools they need to become confident and competent writers across multiple genres.

A genre study approach

According to the researchers, genre study within writing workshop has a crucial role to play in developing students’ writing skills. Genre study allows children to explore a variety of mentor texts which realistically match the kind of writing they are planning to make too.

1. Role of mentor texts: Mentor texts are integral to genre study. These texts serve as models, offering students examples of the crafts and techniques used by established authors and illustrators [LINK]. By studying mentor texts, students gain insights into text structures and narrative techniques that they can then use and apply into their writing. This exposure helps them understand how different genres can function and what makes each unique.
2. Appropriation and redesign: As students engage with mentor texts, they naturally begin to appropriate ideas and techniques from these works, adapting them into their own compositions [LINK].
3. Modelling and confidence building: Teachers play a critical role in modelling how to use the author’s craft during instruction [LINK]. Through explicit and direct instruction, teachers demonstrate how to apply a writerly technique observed in the studied mentor texts [LINK]. This kind of instruction helps students build confidence in their own writing abilities. This modelling, combined with the availability of mentor texts, supports students in developing a deeper understanding of the typical features that can define different genres [LINK].
4. Literary heritage: The concept of ‘literary heritage’ suggests that the literature to which children are exposed becomes a foundational element in their writing development. The techniques and styles they encounter in these texts are not just learnt but are incorporated into their own writerly repertoire, allowing them to take ownership of the craft. This process underscores the importance of providing students with rich and varied literary experiences to draw upon as they develop as writers [LINK].

Overall, genre study within a writing workshop approach encourages students to explore and experiment with different forms of writing, guided by the examples set by mentor texts and the support of their teachers. This approach helps students to develop a nuanced understanding of different genres, enhances their writing skills, and fosters a sense of ownership over their writing process.

Agency in the writing classroom

According to Rylak and their colleagues, agency is the ability of students to make deliberate decisions and act intentionally to achieve your their writing goals. This concept is central to the writing workshop approach, where students are encouraged to be active participants in their writing rather than passive recipients of someone’s else compositional ideas.

• Agency in the writing workshop: Compared to a presentational-skills approach to writing, the writing workshop model provides students with greater agency by placing them at the centre of the writing process. In this environment, teachers act as transmitters of knowledge but also as facilitators, allowing students more flexibility and choice in their writing. This gives students the opportunity to express their opinions, help set class writing goals, and work towards improving their compositions independently.

• Benefits of increased agency: Research suggests that when students are granted agency in the writing classroom — particularly through the freedom to choose their own writing topics within the parameters of a class writing project — they experience several benefits. These include reduced difficulty in generating topics, the production of longer compositions, an increased willingness to write during their free time, and greater confidence in sharing their writing with others. These outcomes indicate that students not only become more engaged but also develop a stronger sense of confidence as writers.

• Bringing outside lives into the classroom: Agency in writing workshop also allows students to bring their personal experiences and outside lives into the classroom [LINK]. This aspect of agency is crucial as it enables students to write about topics that are meaningful to them and to consider their audience when composing their manuscripts. Moreover, collaboration with peers further enhances their agency, as they learn to negotiate ideas and share their perspectives during the composing process [LINK].

The findings reveal important insights into how first graders like Maya and Bruno engage with and apply composing techniques when given the freedom to choose in an open-ended writing unit. The study highlights several key themes related to student agency, the role of multimodal instruction, and the implications for writing pedagogy.

Key findings:

• Application of techniques: Children continually utilised the techniques taught by their teacher, demonstrating that they had internalised these strategies [LINK]. When students are exposed to specific writing strategies, they are likely to incorporate them into their manuscripts even when not required, showing a deepening of their understanding and skill [LINK].

• Publishing: The study underscores the value of teaching students to use multiple modes—beyond written text—when creating their compositions. This approach aligns with research suggesting that multimodal instruction broadens students’ interpretive repertoires and enhances their ability to communicate. By allowing students to explore different modes, teachers support a more inclusive literacy practice that acknowledges diverse ways of knowing and expressing ideas.

• Student agency: The children were able to demonstrate agency in their writing by making purposeful, independent decisions about which writerly techniques they wanted to use. This agency was fostered by having a strong structure for class writing projects, while still offering flexibility and choice [LINK]. The ability to choose and redesign techniques according to their own compositional needs reflects the students’ growing independence as writers and their confidence in their creative decisions.

• The assumed tension between giving structure and allowing for complete freedom: The study identifies an assumed tension between providing children with structured support through planning sheets, success criteria and revision and editing checklists and allowing students the freedom to design and create anew. The reality is that structured support is there to help guide young writers and the freedom to choose their own writing ideas and ways of publishing are there to support their creative agency. The findings suggest that structured class writing projects and more open personal writing projects can help balance these needs, giving students the tools they need to write effectively while also allowing them the freedom to experiment and innovate.

Implications for practice:

• Pedagogical flexibility: The combination of structured class writing projects and personal projects appears to be a powerful approach, fostering both skill development and creative expression. Teachers might consider integrating more open-ended writing opportunities with more focused instructional units to support students’ agency and creativity.

Overall, this study contributes to a growing body of research that advocates for a more flexible, writer-centered approach to writing instruction, one that values student agency, structure, instruction, and the long-term development of writing skills. Indeed, providing pupils with agency should not be equated with teacher apathy. Structure provides the rules, guidelines, parameters, expectations, goals, instruction, and feedback for pupils’ autonomy to flourish. At the end of the day, it’s difficult for students to feel any sense of control over their writing if their writer-teacher is only ever providing chaos [LINK and LINK].

Hey everyone. Happy new academic year! If you’re a new member of SLT or a writing coordinator, here are some articles and resources that could be really useful to you this year:

14 ways to improve the writing teaching in your school [LINK]

This article outlines 14 research-based principles for effective writing instruction, designed to improve both enjoyment and performance.

Which writing model would best guide us to raise writing standards in our school? [LINK]

This article introduces The Writerly Knowledge Model, which combines rigorous instruction with attention to students’ social and affective needs. This model offers a comprehensive approach to improving writing achievement in schools, focusing on both the process and craft of writing.

The writer(s)- within- community model and improving the teaching of writing across a school [LINK] 

This article explains how writing coordinators can use the Writer(s)- Within- Community Model to improve the writing provision across their school. It emphasises the importance of collaboration between writers, teachers, and students to create a supportive ‘writing school’. The model highlights how school environment, individual abilities, and guiding principles collectively shape writing education.

Evidence-based recommendations for teaching writing [LINK] 

This article shares effective methods for teaching writing, drawn from nearly 1,000 studies, applicable to students aged 5–18. Key points include the importance of frequent, purposeful writing with explicit instruction, teacher and peer feedback, and teaching writing skills like grammar, planning, and revision.

The components of an effective writing unit [LINK] 

This articles explains how a well-planned class writing project provides a structured way to teach children about the writing process, with research showing it can have a highly positive impact on progress. Effective writing units follow a routine of introducing topics, reading as writers, setting goals, generating ideas, drafting, revising, and publishing. While teachers can adapt the structure to meet class needs, omitting core steps may hinder students’ writing development, emphasising the need for a flexible but comprehensive approach to teaching writing across a school.

Getting writing instruction right [LINK]

SRSD (Self-Regulation Strategy Development) is an effective approach for teaching writing, focusing on helping students become independent writers by using specific strategies. The process involves teaching one writing technique at a time, demonstrating its use, providing resources for reference, and encouraging students to apply it in their writing. SRSD is validated through research and integrates well with other principles of effective writing instruction, promoting both the mastery of ;craft moves’ and self-regulation in young writers.

Spelling and handwriting provision: A checklist [LINK]

This checklist will help writing coordinators ensure that their spelling and handwriting provision is fit for purpose and reflects the latest research and thinking about quality handwriting and spelling instruction.

How we can support children as they are writing [LINK]

This article offers teachers and writing coordinators proven strategies to support children as they are writing.

Original article: LINK

By Grant Wiggins

According to Wiggins, students should be given real-world writing projects that have genuine audiences and purposes, rather than boring, formulaic assignments.

He argues that in school, writing tasks often lack real purpose or audience, making them dull and uninspiring. Students are typically focused on getting good grades rather than making an impact with their writing. By contrast, real-world writing aims to engage and affect the reader, which is what makes writing interesting and valuable. Therefore, teachers should design class writing projects that challenge children to think creatively and write for real audiences.

Backward design

This approach to planning class writing projects involves starting with the publishing goal in mind [LINK]. This means preparing students for real-world writing.

1. Importance of audience and purpose: In real-world writing, knowing your audience and purpose is crucial. Your writing should have a specific impact on your readers, whether it’s to entertain, inform, persuade, or explain something to them [LINK].
2. Mismatch with school writing: Scheme-based writing assignments often lack real purpose and audience. They tend to be verbose, dense, and disconnected from practical application, which is not how writing works in the real world.
3. Empathy and clarity: Effective real-world writing involves cognitive empathy—understanding what your audience needs and presenting information clearly and concisely [LINK]. This is a critical skill that is often overlooked by writing schemes.
4. Improving writing instruction: Instead of focusing on writing skills out of context, teachers should help students find meaningful content to write about [LINK]. Encouraging students to write with conviction and for real audiences can make their writing more impactful and engaging.

Understanding audience

1. Empathy in writing: To be successful as a writer, you need to have empathy. This means understanding who your audience is and what they care about [LINK]. You’re rarely writing just for yourself, so you need to think about your readers’ needs and expectations.
2. Identifying the audience: When writing, it’s important to think about specific people who might read your work. This can help make your writing clearer and more engaging [LINK].
3. Example from Alverno College: Alverno College uses a competency-based approach to teaching and assessing writing. Students are given projects that require them to explain concepts to specific audiences, like explaining aspirin to a non-chemist friend. This helps them practice tailoring their writing to different readers.
4. Success criteria: Teachers and children can create success criteria together with a focus on how well the writing reaches the audience. This includes factors like word choice, tone, structure, and content. Students also assess their own manuscripts, which helps them understand how well they’re communicating [LINK and LINK].
5. Understanding different audiences: There is no single audience for any piece of writing. Writers need to consider different subgroups within their audience and adjust their message accordingly. Not everyone will respond to the same message so it’s important to find the right niche or group that will appreciate your manuscript.

To write effectively, children need to understand their audience deeply and write with their needs in mind [LINK]. This involves thinking about specific people who might read their compositions and making sure their writing is clear, relevant, and engaging for them.

Beyond egocentrism

1. Real-world writing projects: Students should be required to produce writing that has a real-world purpose and audience. This means writing projects should mirror what people actually write in their everyday lives, such as instructions, letters, or reports [EYFS, KS1 & KS2].
2. Feedback and empathy: Children deserve feedback on their writing based on how well it meets its purpose and connects with the audience [LINK]. This helps them understand how their writing is perceived by others and improves their ability to communicate effectively. It also gives them an opportunity to make social connections with their readership. This can be very motivating!
3. Self-assessment and peer review: Before submitting their writing to their teacher, students could: (i) write a statement explaining their purpose and audience, (ii) get feedback from their peers focused on how well the manuscript meets its purpose and reaches the audience, and (iii) revise their manuscript based on this feedback and provide a summary of what feedback they used and why.
4. Making a difference: Children are more motivated to write when they know their writing will have an impact [LINK]. This could be sharing their writing in class, publishing it online, and/or writing something that is personally meaningful [LINK].
5. Serious intent writing: ‘serious intent’ writing doesn’t mean writing about serious topics. It means taking the purpose and audience seriously, whether writing a joke, an advertisement, or a letter to a friend. The goal is to communicate effectively and make a difference to the reader.

Conclusion

Effective writing teaching involves real-world writing projects, understanding the audience, and receiving meaningful feedback. This approach helps students become better writers by teaching them to focus on the impact of their words, rather than just completing a scheme-assigned writing task.

Original article: LINK

By Nadia Behizadeh

People write to make and share meaning. This includes everything from social media posts to poetry and even exams. But what makes writing truly authentic?

In everyday life, businesses often advertise their services as ‘authentic.’ For example, an ‘authentic’ restaurant promises genuine cuisine. In education, however, authenticity means something different. It’s not necessarily about the task itself being authentic, but about how your students perceive it.

Research shows that students learn better when they find class writing projects genuinely engaging [LINK]. For instance:

• Students learn more when they are genuinely engaged [LINK].
• Authentic writing projects are crucial for learning different genres [LINK].
• Students can achieve a level of mastery by participating in authentic writing projects [LINK].

Redefining authenticity

Traditionally, educators have viewed authenticity as a feature of the writing task. For example, writing a letter to a pen pal is considered authentic because it’s a real-life activity. Similarly, authentic assessments are those that match real-world tasks. For example, writing a diary in role as a character from a book. However, some scholars argue that authenticity is actually subjective. It depends on how meaningful the student finds the class writing project. It could be said that a writing project is authentic only when students see it as being relevant and valuable to their own lives [LINK and LINK].

To make class writing projects more authentic, teachers can see authenticity as existing on a spectrum. Some class projects will be more authentic than others. Teachers (and children) can work together to think about how they can make certain class projects more authentic [LINK].

Structured choice of a valued topic

Giving students guidance and instruction on how to choose writing topics

Students often prefer having some agency over their writing topics but can struggle with complete freedom [LINK and LINK]. Students often comment that they like to be given some leeway in choosing what they would like to write about within the parameters of the class writing project [LINK]. This, as opposed to being assigned a specific topic or being given the opportunity to pick from a selection of teacher (or scheme) generated ideas [LINK]. However, too much freedom can also leave some students unsure of what to choose [LINK].

Helping students find meaningful topics

Children need time to think deeply about their writing ideas and to talk these ideas through with their teacher and friends. That’s what’s so great about having an Ideas Party and keeping a Writing Register [LINK].

Implementing structured choice in class

Ideas Parties and Writing Registers are just two examples for implementing structured choices in your writing classroom. Teachers can meet with students individually to discuss ideas while the rest of the class work on a personal writing project [LINK].

Students who may have been brought up on a diet of teacher or scheme-assigned writing topics can feel writing at school is disconnected from their lives. They feel alienated from writing as a result. While children who have been brought up on such a diet still desire choice, they often need instruction [LINK], guidance and feedback [LINK] to find their most meaningful and promising topics.

Even though many pupils feel their teacher will be accepting of their writing ideas, some children (particularly boys) can feel that their ideas are not always accepted by their teachers. Teachers need to understand and not shy away from real-world issues that students want to write about [LINK and LINK].

Balancing structure and freedom

To foster authentic expression, as educators, we must balance structure with freedom in topic choice [LINK]. We should be mindful of our own topic and genre biases, as limiting topics too severely or unnecessarily can hinder students’ heartfelt expression [LINK]. By guiding students toward meaningful and successful choices and being open to a range of topics, teachers can enhance the authenticity, independence, and engagement of their students [LINK].

Writing for impact: Making a difference through writing

In discussing writing with children, what becomes clear is that for them, authenticity is about more than just expressing themselves and having some choice over their writing ideas —it’s also about writing for impact [LINK]. Children often express a strong desire to write about issues that matter deeply to them [LINK]. In addition, young writers wish deeply for social connection. They want to witness or hear about their reader(s) reactions to their texts.

Authentic writing isn’t just about abiding by conventions and showing your teacher proficiency – it’s about connecting with and moving others [LINK].

Practical implications for teachers

Children’s perspectives on authentic writing show how choice, connection and impact are interconnected, creating a unique context for each class writing project. Children too often view school writing as separate from personal, purposeful, authentic or home writing. To turn the tide, and make writing more authentic, teachers can:

• Establish publishing goals for class writing projects with their class [LINK].
• Explicitly teach children idea generation techniques that writers use [LINK].
• Support children’s topic choices through verbal feedback [LINK].
• Create a Writing Realities classroom and school [LINK].

Following the success of last year’s training, we are collaborating with HFL Education and UK Literacy Association’s School Of The Year Elmhurst Primary School to bring you our training: Getting Writing Right: What The Evidence Says.

Join us for a day of learning on the 17th of September.

About this course

Held at Elmhurst Primary School in London, this training will equip teachers and leaders to understand what the latest evidence and research concerning quality writing teaching is.   

The day will consider how schools can ensure that all children make maximised progress in writing.  The essential features of writing teaching will be discussed, such as: 

• How to set rigorous writing goals
• How to plan a class writing project with the greater-depth standard as the standard
• What’s involved in delivering an effective writing lesson
• How to deliver sentence-level and grammar instruction
• How to connect reading and writing profitably.

Learning Outcomes

• Have a secure understanding of what the evidence and research says around effective writing teaching
• Be given practical ideas and strategies for writing teaching to use in the primary classroom immediately
• Be equipped with greater confidence and subject knowledge concerning the teaching of writing

Additional Information

Lunch & refreshments will be provided.

Schools will also receive a school license (worth £54.75) to our latest eBook How To Teach Writing.

Until one has loved an animal, a part of one’s soul remains unawakened – Anatole France

Why write poems about animals and pets?

Children love animals. They often ask each other what their favourite animals are and why. Many have pets. Regardless of where we live, we see a variety of animals, and they are important to us for many reasons. Poets write about animals in various ways, and many people enjoy reading or hearing such poems.

Writers sometimes simply focus on an animal in order to be playful and descriptive with language. Others use animals (such as snakes, wolves and foxes) as a metaphor to describe human behaviour, psychology and even philosophy. Some write odes to a particular animal. Poems can be memoir-based (prose poems). Of course, others will write about mythical creatures, as Lewis Carroll did in Jabberwocky.

Finally, if you read nonfiction texts about animals, you may notice that writers often use figurative language, or what we call painting with words, to classify and describe animals. With this writing project you can begin to introduce the idea that poetry and non-fiction can work in harmony.

Original article: LINK

By Elizabeth Jaeger

Jaeger’s study discusses the unique collaborative writing experience of a group of primary-aged students have during their writing lessons. Rodrigo, Ryan, Sam, and Paul, among others, spontaneously co-authored a superhero story over six weeks, which was distinguished by its intensity, creativity, and influence on their peers. This phenomenon occurred in a classroom environment focused on meaning-making and student agency, consistent with a communicative approach to teaching writing.

The purpose of Jaeger’s study was to explore the possibilities for student-centered co-composing practices in primary classrooms by analysing the children’s collaborative processes, their interactions, and the multi-voiced texts they produced [LINK]. The paper argues that the boys’ work was characterised by both heteroglossic (multi-voiced) discourse and a complementary outcome, demonstrating the potential of more fluid and responsive writing processes in education.

Interactions among co-writers:
The paper describes various ways young writers interact, including planning, negotiating, narrating, and using nonlinguistic modes of communication [LINK]. Students often engage in ‘reactive writing’, a process characterised by minimal planning and instead focus on frequent modification of texts. Turn-taking is also seen as essential, and negotiation of content, roles, and revisions is common. Conflict is ultimately seen as beneficial as it encourages deeper thinking and the refinement and justification of certain writing ideas. Keeping track of the evolving text is also a priority with frequent re-reading aloud together [LINK]. Finally, sound effects and drawings may also contribute to the creative process [LINK]. Occasionally, young writers will discuss and reflect on their writing process too.

Benefits of co-authoring:
The review identifies several benefits of co-authoring, including enhancing each other’s writing processes, improvements in final written products, better decision-making, and positive affect (feelings). Students tend to work harder and produce stronger texts when supported to co-write compared to writing alone. The process also promotes a community of writers and situational motivation in the writing classroom. This is because co-authoring naturally facilitates both cognitive and social development, as students must consider, reflect, justify and reconcile their authorial differences. Additionally, it offers affective benefits, such as pleasure, care for peers, and emotional support, which in turn can foster creativity [LINK].

Further CPD articles:

• Developing children’s talk for writing [LINK]
• A quick guide to class sharing and Author’s Chair [LINK]
• The impact of oral language and transcription skills on children’s early writing [LINK]
• The relationship between oral language, content knowledge, cognitive skills and writing [LINK]
• Comparing children’s oral and written storyretelling: the role of ideation and transcription [LINK]

By Anne McIntyre, Amy Scott, Brigid McNeill & Gail Gillon

Original article: LINK

Helping young children develop their language skills so they can become good writers is a key goal in early education [LINK].

This study examined six-year-old children’s abilities to tell a story both orally and in writing, aiming to understand how generating ideas and transcription interact in early writing development.

The relationship between speaking and writing

Studies show that teaching oral language skills improves children’s writing skills [LINK]. These skills should be central parts of early literacy education.

Generating writing ideas and oral language

Writing down ideas depends a lot on speaking skills because we need to translate our thoughts into spoken words before we can write them down [LINK]. Studies show that oral language plays a crucial role in helping children write. Oral language skills in the early years can predict writing quality in KS1 and beyond. Essentially, some research indicates that an ability to tell your writing ideas can predict your later writing success [LINK].

Generating ideas and transcription

Research comparing how children develop their ideas (ideation) and the technical aspects of writing (transcription) in both spoken and written forms is limited. However, it may be the case that improvements in oral skills doesn’t immediately transfer to writing. It may take time for oral language improvements to show up.

Key findings

• The quality of children’s spoken and written stories were similar but not identical. For instance, children used more adverbs in spoken stories, but the number of ideas (measured in what’s called ‘c-units’ which is a way of counting complete ideas) was not significantly different between the two.
• There was a strong positive relationship between the number of words children spoke and wrote. In other words, children who spoke more words also tended to write more words.
• The structure of their stories, sentence complexity, and vocabulary were highly correlated. This means that if a child’s oral story had good structure their written story typically did too.
• Children’s ability to tell stories orally is strongly related to their ability to write stories.

Implications

Telling and drawing their writing ideas prior to writing them down can play a significant role in children’s early writing success [LINK].

Original article: LINK

By Anne Haas Dyson

In her research paper, Anne Hass Dyson discusses a young boy named Ta’Von, who loves writing about blues guitarists. He spent a long time working on a piece in his personal writing book, which was much longer and more passionate than his earlier, shorter school writing. Ta’Von’s personal writing was full of pride and connected to his family’s love for music, showing his deep interest in blues musicians. Despite his enthusiasm, Ta’Von felt this writing wasn’t ‘real’ because it didn’t have an audience to respond to it.

In school, Ta’Von felt writing was just an activity that was administered to keep children busy during lessons. The school’s writing tasks were based on strict curriculum guidelines and tied to standardised tests. The teacher, though caring, had to follow these guidelines, focusing on the lessons supplied by the scheme.

Writing in school meant writing just to please official requirements and was evaluated by the teacher alone. Children weren’t to write about their own interests and intentions [LINK]. Dyson’s research asks how school writing can become more meaningful and be driven by students’ genuine interests, like Ta’Von’s love for music, rather than just fulfilling curriculum mandates [LINK].

***

It’s important for students to feel a sense of agency and intentionality in their writing to make it ‘real’ and meaningful. Here’s a breakdown:

1. Agency and intentionality: Agency means the power and ability to act on one’s intentions and interests. It’s crucial for pupils to feel that they have control over their writing intentions throughout their lives [LINK].
2. Composing and symbol making: Children’s ability to compose stories, whether through playing with toys, drawing and writing, grows from a foundation of intentional writerly experiences [LINK]. Children quickly learn that their emergent writing can do many things: entertain, question, persuade, and more [LINK].
3. Structured activities in schools: Traditionally, schools provide class writing projects where children can freely explore writing and share their compositions with peers, teachers and others. These projects are like a ‘writerly playground’ for their social and intentional selves to develop and express ideas [LINK].
4. Current educational rigidness: Some writing schemes have become too rigid, making it harder for young children to engage in this kind of intention-filled, meaningful writing.

Overall, there is a need to make school writing more aligned with children’s natural, intention-driven activities to foster genuine engagement with writing and being writers [LINK].

***

Strict writing schemes affect children’s ability to write creatively and meaningfully. Here’s a breakdown:

1. Embedded agency: While none of us have complete freedom, our identities are shaped by the institutions we are part of. Strict writing schemes impact children’s writing [LINK, LINK and LINK].
2. Presentational-skill oriented writing schemes: Writing mainly to practice skills isn’t the meaningful, intention-driven writing that helps children make sense of the world. Children need to practice writing in a way that’s purposeful and meaningful, similar to how professionals practice their skills [LINK & LINK].

There is a need for a more inclusive approach to teaching writing that values children’s interests and intentions, allowing their creativity and knowledge to be recognised and nurtured within the school environment [LINK].

***

How can we make writing more meaningful and real for children? Here’s a breakdown:

What is real writing?

• Real writing involves communicating ideas and sharing meaning(s) with the world. It’s driven by a child’s need and desire to express something meaningful [LINK].
• You can support children to find their intentions but intention must come from within the writer [LINK].
• Real writing isn’t just about practising skills – it’s about children using those skills to communicate something that they feel is worth communicating [LINK & LINK].

Challenges in teaching real writing

• Narrow writing schemes can make it hard to promote real writing because they often focus on rigid skill practice alone.
• However, teachers still have some control over how they respond to students and organise class writing projects [LINK].

Public sharing

• Having a time for children to share their writing with others helps connect their personal interests with the school’s curriculum [LINK].
• This public forum lets teachers understand their students better and helps students anticipate an audience for their compostions [LINK].

Flexible class writing projects

• Class writing projects should be flexible and allow children to participate in various ways using different writing ideas [LINK].

In summary, Dyson advocates for a more flexible and writer-centered approach to writing in schools, where children’s own interests and intentions drive their writing, and they have opportunities to share their compositions with others. This approach helps make writing more meaningful and engaging for students.

Original article: LINK

By Charlotte L. Land

Charlotte Land’s study aimed to answer the following question: How can teachers integrate critical and humanising teaching methods into their writing classrooms? Key findings show how teachers can use concepts like purpose and audience to value their students’ abilities and support them as makers of meaningful texts.

• Start with purpose and audience: Begin class writing projects by considering the purpose of the writing project and who the audience will be. This shift helps make writing tasks more meaningful and relevant to students [LINK].
• Recognise student capabilities: By emphasising purpose and audience, teachers can better recognise and value the unique knowledge(s) and perspectives that each student brings to the writing classroom [LINK].
• Support student agency: Encourage students to see themselves as capable and independent writers who can make decisions about their writing based on its purpose and intended future audience [LINK and LINK].

Humanising teaching approaches

Schools can often purchase writing schemes which dehumanise both children and teachers. Critical and humanising pedagogies aim to counter these effects by promoting a more inclusive, respectful, and empowering approach to teaching writing. An example of this is our free-access Writing Realities framework [LINK].

Core concepts of humanising writerly education:

1. Mutual learning: Humanising education involves teachers and students learning about writing and being writers together through dialogue, treating each other as equals in the learning process [LINK].
2. Resisting deficit views: Instead of seeing students through a lens of what they lack, educators should recognise and honour the strengths and knowledge(s) that students bring from their cultural and linguistic backgrounds to the writing classroom [LINK].
3. Disrupting power hierarchies: Teachers should aim to break down traditional power structures in the classroom and the broader society, fostering an environment where all students feel valued and empowered as young writers.
4. Applying critical literacy: Critical literacy involves reading and writing with an awareness of power dynamics in texts. It encourages students to not only understand and critique what they read but also to create their own texts that reflect their perspectives and push for social justice [LINK].

Making writing relevant and engaging for students

Today’s writers need to be adaptable and able to make complex decisions about how to effectively communicate their messages. However, schools often don’t spend enough time teaching writing, and when they do, it is frequently through uninspiring, scheme-assigned writing tasks that don’t connect with individual children or with real-world purposes [LINK and LINK]. Writing assignments are typically designed to meet a scheme’s requirements (not children’s needs).

To prepare students for the demands of writing beyond school, we need to give them opportunities to make their own writerly decisions. This includes deciding what to write about, why they are writing, and who their audience will be. Students should be seen as creators of knowledge rather than just consumers.

Historical and modern perspectives

The idea that writing teaching should consider audience and purpose dates back to Aristotle. Over time, scholars have explored how different types of audiences— whether real or imagined — affect the writing process. Today, as writing becomes more participatory, it’s important for students to develop skills for engaging with their readers and using their feedback effectively.

Challenges in current writing instruction

Research shows that giving students real reasons and audiences for their writing makes a big difference. And while the ideas of ‘purpose’ and ‘audience’ are common in both the National Curriculum and STA Writing Statements, they often become about following specific formats or fulfilling teacher (or scheme-generated) checklists rather than truly engaging with who the writing is for and why it matters [LINK and LINK]. This can make writing seem like a mechanical skill rather than a way to communicate with others [LINK].

Without a strong focus on purpose and audience, writing instruction can alienate children and become disconnected from the real-world. This leads to formulaic x30+ copies of the same writing that doesn’t inspire students (or teachers) to write for themselves. Students need to see writing as a tool to make and share meaning with others, not just as an academic exercise to endure. Unfortunately, for too many students in the UK at present this is the case [LINK].

• Standardised writing: Schools often conform to narrow definitions of what writing could (and should) be, especially when following narrow writing schemes, which can overlook the rich and diverse linguistic and cultural backgrounds of students [LINK].
• Teacher-centered evaluation: Even in more inclusive classrooms, teachers are usually the main audience and evaluators, making most of the decisions about writing tasks [LINK and LINK].
• Pressure to conform: There is significant pressure to disproportionately prioritise getting children to write about their reading, and to stick to formulaic writing instruction, especially in schools serving marginalised and/or economically underserved communities [LINK].

Addressing these challenges

Teachers need methods that honour and build on students’ strengths, preparing them for teacher-assessment/moderation and the diverse writing contexts they’ll encounter when they leave school. This involves:

• Connecting writing to real life: Help students choose writing topics that are meaningful to them and connect to their own experiences, knowledge(s), passions and interests [LINK and LINK].
• Focusing on purpose and audience: Start with why students are writing and who they are writing for [LINK].
• Support student agency: Encourage students to see themselves as capable writers who can make decisions about their writing [LINK]. This helps them develop confidence and a sense of ownership over their writing.
• Dialogue and collaboration: Engage with students in meaningful conversations about their writing [LINK].
• Valuing student backgrounds: Invite children to incorporate their cultural and linguistic resources into the writing classroom to make their writing apprenticeship more relevant and respectful [LINK].
• Empowering students: Invite students to write about issues that matter to them, helping them see their potential to influence change [LINK].
• Critical text creation: Allow students to compose their own texts that challenge injustices and express their unique voices, promoting individual agency and action [LINK].

Conclusion

In summary, adopting critical and humanising approaches to writing helps create a more inclusive and engaging learning environment [LINK]. It prepares children as thoughtful writers who understand the impact writing can have and are ready to navigate various writing contexts effectively now and in the future [LINK].