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Really, I do one thing. I read books. I write books. I think about books. It’s one job. – Toni Morrison 

Writing is the most cognitively demanding activity we ask our pupils to undertake while they are at school. It requires them to draw on at least thirteen different cognitive resources simultaneously. Cognitive psychology has revealed the amazing complexity of what children need, and need to know, in order to learn how to write competently (Young & Ferguson 2022a). It is therefore necessary for teachers to have a pedagogy for writing which takes account of all the many different elements involved in helping children not just to write, but to write well.

Research has shown that there is a profound connection between effective writing instruction and reading (Kim et al. 2023). For example: reading, studying and discussing mentor texts, texts which match the kind of writing children are being invited to make for themselves, can yield a positive effect of +0.76 (Young & Ferguson 2021, 2023a). For children with SEND, it can be +0.94 (Young & Ferguson 2023b). To put those numbers in context, anything above a +0.4 is generally considered to have a significant positive impact on children’s writing development.

The table above shares what we currently know about the connection between reading and effective writing teaching.

In addition:

• Having children write about their reading in reading lessons can yield an effect size of +0.5 (Young & Ferguson 2020, 2021).

• Establishing product goals for a class writing project in response to studying a variety of mentor texts can yield an effect size of +2.03 (Young & Hayden 2022).

• Sharing and modelling how to use certain craft moves taken from literature before inviting children to use these craft moves for themselves in that day’s writing time can yield an effect size of +1.75. For children with SEND, this can be anything up to +2.09 (Young et al. 2021).

• A major part of reading in the writing classroom is children having an opportunity to read, discuss and hear about how you crafted your own writing. Modelling how you use your reading to support your writing, providing pupils with mentor texts you’ve written, and writing alongside your pupils can yield an effect size of 0.54. For children with SEND, this can be anything up to +2.48 (Young & Ferguson 2023b).

• Inviting children to generate and plan their own ideas for their writing (including how they can take ideas from their favourite reading) can yield an effect size of 0.54. For children with SEND, this can be +1.55 (Young & Ferguson 2022b).

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In our eBook Reading In The Writing Classroom: A Guide To Finding, Writing And Using Mentor Texts With Your Class, we shine the spotlight on these particular aspects of research-based instructional practice and show how it can help young writers to write effectively, successfully and engagingly. We explain how teachers and students should come together to share, discuss and study mentor texts as part of a class writing project (The Writing For Pleasure Centre 2023). Writing For Pleasure teachers refuse to allow writing to remain a mystery to their pupils. Instead, through a combination of mentor texts and high-quality literature, they make writing techniques utterly explicit for their young writers. We emphasise that all children need mentor texts, from the EYFS to Year 6 and beyond.

Whole-class direct instruction, group and individualised instruction, and responsive instruction are all part of a Writing For Pleasure teacher’s practice. As the most experienced writer in their classroom, they make sure they are teaching at the beginning of a writing lesson, in the middle of it and at the end.

Whole-class direct instruction: Mini-lessons

Writing For Pleasure teachers deliver direct and explicit instruction through the principles of self-regulation strategy development instruction. This is what we like to call mini-lessons. SRSD instruction is an evidence-based teaching recommendation. Research has shown that it can result in a positive effect size of +1.75 (+2.09 for children with SEND). For context, anything over +0.4 is deemed to have a significant positive effect on children’s progress. That’s why ‘teach mini-lessons’ appears as one of our 14 principles of world-class writing teaching (Young & Ferguson 2020, 2021a, 2022a, 2022b).

SRSD instruction is about teaching children strategies which enable them to be independent writers by using for themselves what they’ve been taught. It’s one of the most validated and effective practices a teacher of writing can employ in their classroom (Young & Ferguson 2022a).

All children need high-quality teaching and explicit instruction if they are to fulfil their potential as writers. This is why SRSD instruction works so well. The concept is simple. Teach your class one writerly technique, process or strategy (what we call a craft move) before inviting them to use the move for themselves in their writing that day. Case studies show that the most effective writing teachers deliver instruction in keeping with SRSD when teaching ‘craft knowledge’ (Young et al. 2021), ‘sentence-level strategies’ (Young & Ferguson 2022c) and ‘functional grammar lessons’ (Young & Ferguson 2021b). 
It can be useful to compare SRSD instruction with The Gradual Release Of Responsibility model for instruction (Pearson & Gallagher 1983).

• I did or I do – The teacher either shares how they’ve used the craft move or models how to use it live.
• We do – The class is invited to use and apply the craft move in their own writing that day.
• You do – Children understand the value of the craft move and so continue to use it in their future writing, including in their personal writing projects (see Young & Ferguson 2021b).

I, We & You sits in stark contrast to the ineffective but common habit of ‘front loading’ writing instruction at the beginning of a writing project or lesson and proceeding to ‘cross your fingers’ in the hope that the children will remember everything you’ve tried to teach them. This kind of practice doesn’t help children to write well – least of all children with SEND (Young & Ferguson 2023).

A mini-lesson typically goes something like this:

Group and individualised instruction: Pupil-conferencing 

Pupil-conferencing is about providing children with live verbal feedback and responsive individualised instruction during writing time. It’s a mini-lesson for that individual pupil (Ferguson & Young 2021). However, in a quiet and organised classroom, ‘overhearers’ all benefit from these conversations. Pupil-conferencing is an evidence-based teaching recommendation. Research has shown that it can result in a positive effect size of +0.80. That’s why ‘pupil-conferencing’ appears as one of our 14 principles of world-class writing teaching (Young & Ferguson 2020, 2021a, 2022a, 2022b).

Conferencing is about spending a short amount of time with individuals or groups of children who you know would benefit most. In a conference, focus on one thing and teach it well. A good conference is about teaching something and being confident that, once you leave, the child will use and apply what you’ve just taught them.

A successful pupil-conference follows a very similar structure to a mini-lesson:

Responsive instruction: Author’s Chair 

Giving children a daily opportunity to read aloud their developing compositions and discuss their pieces with their teacher and peers is an evidence-based teaching recommendation. Research has shown that it can result in a positive effect size of +0.89. That’s why ‘read, share, think and talk about their writing’ appears as one of our 14 principles of world-class writing teaching (Young & Ferguson 2020, 2021a, 2022a, 2022b).

At the end of daily writing time, children should be given the opportunity to talk with their friends about how their writing pieces are coming along. This can then lead into a period of Author’s Chair. This is where the whole class gathers around an ‘author’s chair’ together. This can be an opportunity for teachers to teach responsively. Writing For Pleasure teachers are always keeping an eye out for certain craft moves or writerly behaviours children have used that they would like the rest of the class to use too. Here’s a nice routine for this kind of responsive instruction:

In summary, Writing For Pleasure teachers are always teaching. They utilise whole-class direct instruction, group and individualised instruction, and responsive instruction as part of their daily teaching practice. However, it’s important to point out that this isn’t the only routine Writing For Pleasure teachers will use. Once comfortable, there are endless ways in which you can play around with these key combinations (see LINK).

Type of instruction		Effect size
Whole-class direct instruction: Mini-lessons		+1.75 +2.09 (SEND)
Group and individualised instruction:Pupil-conferencing		+0.80
Responsive instruction: Class sharing and Author’s Chair		+0.89

Setting process goals is arguably the most effective thing a teacher of writing can do in the classroom. Research has shown that it can result in a positive effect size of +2.03. For context, anything over +0.4 is deemed to have a significant positive effect on children’s progress. That’s why goal setting appears as one of our 14 principles of world-class writing teaching (Young & Ferguson 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023a).

All children, but particularly struggling or less experienced writers, need to know exactly what they are meant to be doing during writing time (the process goal) and how to do it (the mini-lesson) (Young & Ferguson 2023b). Therefore a writing lesson should typically go something like this:

A process goal is the thing you want children to get done in that day’s writing session. The more explicit and elegant the goal can be – the better. For example:

• Today, our goal is to plan our stories using the Story River technique. 
• Today, our goal is to write the opening chunk of our story.
• Today, our goal is to draft five lines – and only five lines!
• Today, our goal is to write the second page of our Information Books.
• Today, our process goal is to draft the end chunk to our discussion texts.
• Today, our goal is to make the final page of our picturebooks.
• Today our goal is to check our writing against our Revision Checklist.
• Today, our goal is for the last few children to finish revising their pieces.
• Today, our process goal is to check for capitalisation. 
• Today, our goal is to check our use of tense.
• Today, our process goal is to check punctuation – specifically our speech punctuation.
• Today, our goal is to check our common word spellings.
• Today, our process goal is to correct our ‘temporary spellings’.

You know you’ve set an appropriate process goal if it can be easily achieved by all pupils in the time allocated. In Writing For Pleasure schools, children know that once they’ve achieved the process goal for that lesson, they are free to work on their own personal writing project (see our eBook A Guide To Personal Writing Projects for more details). This ensures children get the maximum opportunity possible to write for a sustained period every day.

Therefore, if you find your class isn’t routinely finishing writing sessions by working on their personal writing projects, you know you’ve got a problem.

A young writer not receiving opportunities to share their writing with an audience is similar to an actor who rehearsed a play that they never get to perform – Alan Wright

Seems strange to have to point this out, but – children find it difficult to consider their audience’s needs when no real audience exists for a class writing project. Too often children are asked to write on the back of unnatural stimuli, contrived topics, and fake writing situations. Situations where there will be no ‘real’ audience to receive their writing at the project’s end. Then teachers ask us why children’s writing lacks voice and quality. Children with SEND can have even greater difficulty connecting with these sorts of writing tasks (Young & Ferguson 2023a).

It’s important that a class has time to discuss any new writing project with their teacher. This should include establishing a clear publishing goal for the project, giving children an opportunity to consider the purpose for their writing and who they are going to be giving their writing to at the project’s end (Young & Ferguson 2021; The Writing For Pleasure Centre 2023). To help with this, Writing For Pleasure schools share with children the six most common reasons we are moved to write:

(Figures from Young & Ferguson 2020)

Of course, these aren’t static. They can be used in conjunction with one another. Indeed, by combining different writing purposes together, we can enhance our texts. For example, teaching people in a way that is entertaining can enhance our audience’s reading experience. In addition, teachers would do well to focus on developing children’s abilities to: infer, understand others’ perspectives and utilise their ‘theory of mind’. For example, some questions teachers can ask their pupils at the beginning of a new class writing project are: 

• Who are we making this writing for?
• What do we know about our readers?
• What do we think our readers will want?
• What do we think our readers will like?
• What will our readers be looking for?
• What should we do and include to ensure our readers appreciate, understand and enjoy our texts?

As part of our Class Writing Projects resources, we provide teachers and children with our Publishing & Performing Menu. The idea behind this resource is to help teachers and children decide together what the publishing goal for a class writing project will be. At the end of the project, the children will publish and deliver their writing to their chosen audience.

Publishing & Performing Menu

Let’s choose how we’d like to publish or perform our finished writing!

• Read it out during class sharing times (in your own or in another class).
• Have a live debate or political discussion evening centred around the writing.
• Read it out during assembly.
• Have a slam poetry evening.
• Have a lunchtime or after school ‘coffee house’ read-aloud club.
• Have a publishing party or a writers’ picnic.
• Hold special writing celebration evenings or exhibitions where the community can be invited in to read, hear or see live/videoed performances.
• Put it in a frame or give it as a gift.
• Put it on your bedroom wall.
• Put it in the bathroom for people to read on the loo or while they’re in the bath.
• Leave it in the car to read during traffic jams.
• Turn it into a presentation.
• Turn it into a film.
• Turn it into a piece of artwork.
• Add it to the class or school library.
• Send it to another school either here or abroad.
• Send it in the post to a friend or a family member.
• Take it home to share with the family.
• Mail it to a person who needs to read it.
• Send it to an expert, charity or association to see what they think.
• Collect it together with other pieces to make an anthology.
• Share with another class via their class library.
• Enter it into a year group, school, local or national writing competition.
• Send it to a local or national newspaper, magazine or fanzine.
• Publish it online.
• Publish it in the school newsletter or newspaper.
• Have a ‘lecture day’ where people can sign up to hear different speakers discuss what they’ve learnt during class topics.
• Put on a book or poetry sale. You can sell your writing – especially if people know it’s going to a good cause. It can feel good knowing your thoughts, passions and ideas are worth money. 
• Make an audio recording for the class library or school website.
• Suggest that it be used as an ‘exemplar-text’, when the writing is kept by your teacher to help teach next year’s class.
• Ask if you can place it anonymously in local establishments such as: libraries, places of worship, local history centres, museums, art galleries, train stations, bus stops, bookshops, cornershop windows, lamp posts, gates, fences, takeaways, retirement homes, cafes, coffee-houses, pubs, sports-clubs, dentists’ or doctors’ surgeries, on buses or trains.

Filling in the GAP

Over the years, I’ve noticed how I typically ‘sell’ a new class writing project to my class. I fill in the GAP. I do this implicitly. However, there is no reason why a teacher couldn’t make this explicit by filling out a table with their class, like the one below. GAP stands for Genre, Audience & Purpose. 

It’s so important on the first day of any new writing project that you introduce the genre the class will be studying and creating for themselves. You also need to decide on the audience that is going to receive the writing once it’s made, and the purpose you’re looking for the writing to serve. For example:

The key thing to remember is: wherever you see writing out in the world, that’s where your children’s writing can go. Think of people who regularly get written to – your class can send them their writing too.

Writer-teacher Tobias Hayden has taken the concept of the Publishing Menu one step further. Instead of an audience chosen by the whole class, children are invited to fill out a ‘publishing slip’ where they draw who they plan to give their writing to at a project’s end. These slips are then put on display for the rest of the project – as a constant reminder of who they are making their writing for and why. 

Beyond setting publishing goals, it’s imperative that teachers put aside time during a writing session for children to share what they have been crafting that day. It’s an opportunity for them to ‘check in’ with readers to see if they are reacting to and comprehending their text as the authors would like them to. There are a number of ways in which this can be done. One popular way is to conduct an Author’s Chair session (Young & Ferguson 2020).

Writing is language on paper, and over 85% of people worldwide can do it. Yet many children leave school unable to write well, which limits their academic, social, and career opportunities. In England, writing outcomes remain poor. A quarter of children miss the early learning goal for writing, and about one in four leave primary school below the expected standard. Only one in five write above the basic level at KS2.

In a bid to turn the tide on writing underachievement, educators have rightly been interested in developing children’s ‘writing fluency’. This typically means developing children’s oral language, sentence-level, and transcriptional skills so that they can write freely and happily. This is sensible because we know that children who don’t internalise these ‘basic’ skills of writing early into their educational journey can go on to underperform and even experience school failure.¹ In contrast, when these skills are well established, children have the cognitive space to focus on other aspects of writing and being a writer (Young & Ferguson 2022a).

This has led some to erroneously suggest that these skills should be taught first and only. It’s only after these skills have been somehow ‘mastered’ that children ‘earn the right to write’. However, research suggests that this is an instructional mistake and is inefficient at achieving its own aims.² Indeed, despite its increasing theoretical popularity, we don’t know of a single research study that provides evidence for taking up such a perspective (Young & Ferguson 2025a).

Cognitive science has repeatedly shown that expertise in composition and transcription influence each other and support each other’s acquisition in profound ways.³ Research points towards teachers using daily direct instruction to model oral language, sentence-level, and transcriptional skills and inviting children to use and apply what they’ve just learnt in the context of authentic and purposeful writing.⁴ This way, we develop children’s skill and the will to be writers; transcriptional fluency progresses right alongside compositional fluency.

In Writing For Pleasure schools, this is achieved by first accepting children’s emergent writing practices as a temporary scaffold when they first arrive at school. Children are weaned off such practices through daily phonics instruction, handwriting instruction, and by teaching children key encoding strategies (Young & Ferguson 2022b).

Book-making time is when we get to ‘play’ writing! – Reception child

I love this quote from one of the children at our Writing For Pleasure schools. This child was undertaking one of the most cognitively demanding things you can do while you’re at school (Young & Ferguson 2022a). However, as far as he was concerned, it was child’s play.

Throughout their time in the EYFS and KS1, children are invited to use and apply these strategies every day during dedicated ‘book-making time’. It’s through this daily book-making that children also learn to apply fundamental sentence-level skills (Young & Ferguson 2022c, 2023c, 2025b). As a brief example, children learn very early on in their writerly apprenticeship that a book should have a picture and a sentence on every page. Once this rule is well understood, it can be broken!

In Writing For Pleasure schools, this kind of systematic, rigorous and daily routine ensures each child between Nursery and Year Two composes thousands of sentences and makes hundreds of books. In the process, they internalise all the key skills that allow them to write fluently, happily and accurately.

In summary, to develop children’s writing fluency, it would be useful for nurseries and schools to focus on the following: Don’t delay teaching about writing. Start on the very first day (Young & Ferguson 2022b). Encourage children to use their emergent writing practices, especially ‘kid writing,’ while they transition themselves towards ‘adult writing’ (Young & Ferguson 2022b). Interconnect your phonics, encoding and letter formation instruction and provide this kind of instruction daily. Encourage children to use the encoding strategies they learn when writing (Young & Ferguson 2022b). Once encoding and letter formation are internalised, deliver regular, short and explicit handwriting and spelling instruction (Young & Ferguson 2023b). Regularly model sentence-level craft moves before inviting children to use and apply these craft moves in their own writing that day (Young & Ferguson 2022c, 2023c, 2025b).  Teach a daily lesson about an aspect of writing and being a writer. This instruction can typically last anywhere between 1-15 minutes (Young et al. 2021; Young & Ferguson 2022b, 2023c; Ferguson & Young 2023). Teach young writers the ‘book-making process’, study mentor texts, and undertake specific book-making/writing projects (The Writing For Pleasure Centre 2023; Young & Ferguson 2022b, 2023c, 2023d). Invite children to discuss and draw what they are planning to write about before they write it (Young & Ferguson 2022a, 2023a, 2023d). Set aside anywhere between 30-90 minutes every day for children to book-make/write. Invite children to use and apply what you’ve taught them that day in their own writing (Young & Ferguson 2022b). Teachers and assistant teachers should make their own writing/books alongside small groups of children during daily writing time (Young & Ferguson 2023a). During this time, they can provide intensive live verbal feedback and additional responsive instruction through pupil conferencing (Ferguson & Young 2021a). Ensure children can access book-making and other writing opportunities throughout the day. For example, through a well-maintained Writing Centre or by pursuing their own personal writing/book-making projects (Ferguson & Young 2021b).

Footnotes

1. See Berninger et al. 2002; Abbott et al. 2010; Kent & Wanzek 2016; Wen & Coker 2020; Torrance et al. 2021; Young & Ferguson 2021 for more.
2. See Young & Ferguson 2021, 2022a, 2023a; Rohloff et al. 2022; Dahl & Freppon 1995; Ferreiro 1982; Avineri et al. 2015; Dunsmuir & Blatchford 2004; Quinn & Bingham 2018; Johnston 2019; Lancaster 2007; Puranik & Lonigan 2014; Rowe & Wilson 2015; Harmey & Wilkinson 2019; VanNess et al. 2013; Graham 2019; Graham et al. 2011, 2012, 2018a, 2018b, 2020; Daniels 2014; Roser et al. 2014; Thomas 2005; Bruyère & Pendergrass 2020; Hall et al. 2015; Håland et al. 2019; Bradford & Wyse 2020; Tolchinsky 2017; Snell & Andrews 2017; McCutchen 2011; Harris 2021; Harris et al. 2022a, 2022b, 2023) for more.
3. See Young & Ferguson 2022a; Berninger & Winn, 2006; Fitzgerald & Shanahan 2000; Graham 2018, 2020a, 2020b; Mayer 2007; Wen & Coker 2020; Kim 2020, Kim et al. 2014, 2017,  2021, 2022; Truckenmiller & Chandler 2023; Ferguson & Young 2023 for more.
4. See Snyders 2014; Rowe 2018, 2021; Hall et al. 2015, 2022; Gerde et al. 2012; Graham et al. 2012; Ouellette & Sénéchal 2017; Morin & Pulido 2022; Byington & Kim 2017; Gerade et al. 2012; Barratt-Pugh et al. 2021; Copp et al. 2019; Santangelo & Graham 2016; López-Escribano et al. 2022; Puranik & AlOtaiba 2012; Malpique et al. 2017, 2020; Harris et al. 2023; Zhang & Bingham 2019; Quinn et al. 2021; Arrimada et al. 2019; Roitisch et al. 2021; Young & Ferguson 2023a for more.

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• Malpique, A., Pino-Pasternak, D., Valcan, D. (2017). Handwriting automaticity and writing instruction in Australian kindergarten: An exploratory study Reading & Writing 30(8) 1789-1812
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• Mayer, K. (2007) Emerging knowledge about emergent writing YC Young Children 62 pp.34-40
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• Morin, M. F., Pulido, L. (2022) Interventions for the Development of Orthographic Knowledge Based on Invented Spellings, International Journal of Early Childhood, 1-18
• Ouellette, G., Sénéchal, M. (2017) Invented Spelling in Kindergarten as a Predictor of Reading and Spelling in Grade 1: A New Pathway to Literacy, or Just the Same Road, Less Known? Developmental Psychology 53(1) pp.77-88
• Puranik, C., AlOtaiba, S. (2012) Examining the contribution of handwriting and spelling to written expression in kindergarten children Read Writ 25:1523-1546
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For some children, you may be the only teacher they ever meet who is a passionate reader-writer-teacher.

All children, but particularly struggling or less experienced writers, need high-quality teaching and explicit instruction if they are to fulfil their potential as writers. This is why SRSD instruction works so well. The concept is simple. Teach your class one writerly technique, process or strategy (what we call a craft move) before inviting them to use the move for themselves in their writing that day. Case studies show that the most effective writing teachers deliver instruction in keeping with SRSD when teaching ‘craft knowledge’ (Young et al. 2021), ‘sentence-level strategies’ (Young & Ferguson 2022c) and ‘functional grammar lessons’ (Young & Ferguson 2021b).

Readers need to read and hear language used skilfully by master writers. The topic for your writing lessons is always dictated by the needs of your class. If you have noticed a deficit or an issue in your class’ writing development, a mini-lesson is where you attend to it. Use pieces of literature or other writings to illustrate the specific technique or strategy you want your class to use and apply in their compositions before inviting them to use it during that day’s writing time. You should be able to begin this sort of mini-lesson by saying something along the lines of: ‘the reason I’m showing you this craft move is because I think it will really add value to our pieces…’ or ‘check out this amazing craft move I saw [David Almond] use, I thought we could try using it today too’. Show them what the writer has done and how they achieved it. Next, show them how you’ve used it. At the end of any mini-lesson, you want your class to be able to say: ‘I can see what [David Almond] and my writer-teacher did – I can do that too!’

Writing instruction, using literature, can typically go something like this:

There’s no better advice I can give you than to suggest that you develop yourself as a reader-writer-teacher (Ferguson & Young 2023). This is the best way to gain knowledge of writerly techniques and strategies, knowledge about genres, knowledge about sentence structures, and knowledge about how grammar really works. So, read. Read personally and for pleasure. Read with a professional eye. Read as a writer reads.

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For more information on how to use literature and other high-quality texts in the writing classroom, consider purchasing our eBook: Reading in the writing classroom: A guide to finding, writing and using mentor texts with your class

Giving children a daily opportunity to read aloud their developing compositions and discuss their pieces with their teacher and peers is an evidence-based teaching recommendation. Research has shown that it can result in a positive effect size of +0.89. For context, anything over +0.4 is deemed to have a significant positive effect on children’s progress. That’s why ‘read, share, think and talk about their writing’ appears as one of our 14 principles of world-class writing teaching (Young & Ferguson 2020, 2021a, 2022a, 2022b).

At the end of daily writing time, children should be given the opportunity to talk with their friends about how their writing pieces are coming along. This can then lead into a period of Author’s Chair. This is where the whole class gathers around an ‘author’s chair’ together. 

A nice routine for author’s chair

A class writing project (or writing unit) is an opportunity for a whole class to come together and learn more about a type of writing. It’s also where teachers can explicitly teach children about the processes involved in writing. Research has shown that teaching children about the writer’s process can result in a positive effect size of +1.26. For context, anything over +0.4 is deemed to have a significant positive effect on children’s progress. That’s why teaching the writing processes appears as one of our 14 principles of world-class writing teaching (Young & Ferguson 2020, 2021, 2022, 2023a, 2023b).

An effective writing unit typically involves a reassuringly consistent (though adaptable) routine of: introduce, read as writers, establish product goals, generate ideas, plan, draft, revise, proof-read and publish. 

The table below explains why these different components are so useful and effective.

This type of routine provides an excellent foundation for your writing units. However, once you and your students are comfortable with this kind of structure, you can begin to play around with it. Routine doesn’t mean rigidity – a good routine always has a component of flexible response. The routine’s importance is found in knowing what a good class writing project typically involves and having a shared language you can use with your class and across school. Your students will soon get used to language like: publishing goals, reading as writers, mentor texts, product goals, generating ideas, planning, drafting, process goals, revising, proof-reading and publishing and performing.

It’s important to point out that not every writing unit needs to go through all of these components. Teachers should use their own professional judgement to plan their own units. For example, a teacher could feel it appropriate to remove, shorten or otherwise rearrange particular components based on their class’ needs and the amount of time they want to spend on a particular project. However, with that said, to routinely omit or neglect certain processes would certainly result in children receiving an incomplete writerly apprenticeship and would inevitably lead to unnecessary writing underachievement.

There are endless ways in which you can play around with these key combinations. As writer-teacher Doug Kaufman (2022) suggests, we recommend that you plan your writing units in a graphic form of boxes. This can help you to clarify what components you want to cover and how many sessions you might want to spend on each component. This helps you envision the multiple possibilities for structuring your units in response to your pupils’ needs and personal agendas. Here are some examples:

Below, we provide some examples of what a classic unit can look like across multiple lessons.

Here are some other ways in which teachers have planned a writing unit:

On the next few pages, we show how the components of an effective writing unit support the requirements of The EYFS Framework, Development Matters and the KS1/KS2 STA Writing Statements.

Finally, whilst class writing projects are the perfect place for introducing and teaching children about the writer’s process, it’s crucial to remember that, over time, young writers should have an opportunity to develop their own idiosyncratic ways of writing (Young & Ferguson 2020, 2021a, 2022, 2023). We must provide opportunities for children to play around with these processes for themselves – away from the demands of class writing projects. We believe this is best done by ensuring children have opportunities to pursue their own personal writing projects (Ferguson & Young 2021). This way, they can learn about the recursive nature of the writer’s process and how they can move between these different processes for themselves. It’s also a place for them to learn about other processes writers go through, such as: abandoning, reimagining, returning and updating. For more information, see our eBook: A Guide To Personal Writing Projects & Writing Clubs For 3-11 Year Olds

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For more information on planning your class writing units, consider downloading our Class Writing Projects and other eBooks.

Reading In The Writing Classroom will tell you everything you need to know about mentor texts. It shows you how to draw on children’s literature, including fiction, poetry and non-fiction, in the quest to find just the right texts to use as models, and then how to get the very most out of them during a class writing project. More than that, you’ll learn how easy it is to find your own literary mentors, write your own great texts tailored to your class, and, as a reader-writer-teacher, be confident that you are helping children create their own best texts too. 

In this eBook, we cover:   

• How to read deeply as a writer reads.
• How to teach children to read deeply as a writer reads.
• What mentor texts do for writers.
• How using mentor texts makes writing techniques visible and utterly attainable for teachers and children.
• How to find craft moves from your reading to use in your own writing.
• How children can find craft moves from their reading to use in their own writing.
• The untold benefits of writing your own mentor texts as a writer-teacher.
• Advice and activities which help children get the most out of studying mentor texts.
• A booklist of great texts which teach great writing: mentor texts for 3-103 year olds.

Using mentor texts brings reading and writing together in profound ways and is therefore an essential part of developing yourself as a world-class teacher of both reading and writing. By studying mentor texts with your class, you will be able to show them in an explicit way what writers do. Put simply, through reading and discussing powerful models, children see what ‘good writing’ is before producing it for themselves in their very own pieces.

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Plans are of little importance, but planning is essential – Winston Churchill

Planning strategies have been shown to help children craft better texts (Young & Ferguson 2023a, 2023b). These include (but aren’t limited to) the use of graphic organisers and planning grids. By using graphic organisers or planning grids, we can make available to our classes the typical journey writing in a particular genre goes through to be successful. For example, a biography can follow a sequence of:

• Introduction 
• Early life
• What led to the  subject’s most important achievement 
• The subject’s main achievement
• What the person did afterwards 
• Why the person is significant for the writer

There are obvious benefits (and also limitations) to providing children with such grids. Planning grids and graphic organisers are like directions, giving inexperienced writers a reassuring road map they can follow to help them maintain the cohesiveness of their piece. They help children get a handle on their ideas and their intentions. Of course, once they get going with their drafting, they don’t have to stick to what they’ve put down on their planning grid – but it’s always there to orientate them if they get lost. However, it’s right to say that, for some children, a planning grid can limit any unique interpretations or innovations of the genre they might have had. These children might benefit more from our other planning strategies. For example, ‘adventuring’ (see our eBook No More: I Don’t Know What To Write Next… Lessons That Help Children Plan Great Writing for more details).

It’s important that children know that even the best laid plans can often go awry and that everything can be subject to change once they begin drafting.

Research suggests that teaching and modelling a planning strategy before inviting children to use it for themselves during that day’s writing time is effective practice (Young & Ferguson 2023a, 2023b). The key here is to show students a planning strategy, don’t just tell them.

Steps for teaching planning strategies
Step One:	Orientate Remind the children of the class writing project you are currently working on. This includes checking they know what they are writing and who they are writing it for.
Step Two:	Discuss – Introduce the planning strategy you want the children to try out in writing time today. Name the strategy. For example ‘Story Arcs (see our eBook No More: I Don’t Know What To Write Next… Lessons That Help Children Plan Great Writing for more details). – Then be a salesperson. Tell your class why this planning strategy is so fantastic and how its use could transform their writing. Share how you’ve used it in the past.
Step Three:	Share Models or Model Live Share models. Show children examples of where other writers have used this planning strategy in their writing. There should certainly be an example of where you’ve used it to help you plan a piece of your own writing. You should also show examples from other students in previous years or classes. Invite children to ask you questions. Or Model using the planning strategy live in front of your class. Tell them about an idea you’re currently working on and show how you’re going to use the strategy to help you with your draft. Invite children to ask you questions.
Step Four:	Provide Information  We always recommend turning your instruction into a poster or resource which the children can refer to throughout writing time. This helps them memorise the planning strategy. For example, you might make a poster to accompany a lesson on using a Planning River (see our eBook No More: I Don’t Know What To Write Next… Lessons That Help Children Plan Great Writing for more details). The poster can almost always be pre-prepared to save time and can remain up in the classroom over many days, weeks or even months. Children will be showing independent, self-regulating behaviour every time they consult the poster.
Step Five:	Invite – Invite children to use the planning strategy during that day’s writing time. – Monitor children’s use of the strategy during your daily pupil-conferencing (Ferguson & Young 2021).
Step Six:	Evaluate You can invite children to share how they used the planning strategy during class sharing and Author’s Chair (Young & Ferguson 2020). If you have noticed a student who has used the strategy in a particularly powerful, innovative or sophisticated way during your pupil-conferencing, you should invite that child to share their work with the class. The class can then discuss their friend’s planning and its impact.

It can be useful to compare this kind of instruction with The Gradual Release Of Responsibility (Pearson & Gallagher 1983).

• I did or I do – The teacher either shares how they’ve used the planning strategy or models how to use it live.
• We do – The class is invited to use the planning strategy for themselves during that day’s writing time.
• You do – Children understand the value of the planning strategy and so continue to use it in their future writing, including in their personal writing projects (see Young & Ferguson 2021b).

Top tips

• One thing we would certainly recommend is that teachers don’t ask children to stick their plans in their book prior to drafting. We want children to be looking at their plans and so have them in front of them as they draft.

• Consider giving the class more than one session on their plans if you think enough children would benefit. Children who have finished what seems to be a good plan can work on their personal writing project. This allows you to work with children who may need a bit of extra support. For more information on setting up personal writing projects in your class, see our eBook: A Guide To Personal Writing Projects & Writing Clubs For 3-11 Year Olds (Young & Ferguson 2021).

• Children find planning easier when there is a genuine purpose and future audience for their writing (beyond their teacher’s evaluation), and when they’ve been allowed to generate their own writing idea within the parameters of the class writing project. 

• Give children time to talk about their writing ideas before they begin any kind of formal or informal planning. When the plan is completed, give them another opportunity to talk it through with a friend or peer. 

• Whatever planning strategy you choose to teach your class, avoid asking them to do much writing. Instead, where possible, encourage them to use diagrams, symbols or drawings. For example, there is no reason why children can’t draw on planning grids or graphic organisers. Drawing stops children from ‘treading on their own writing toes’ when they come to draft their piece. How many times have you seen a child who has been asked to plan ending up writing their whole story out in the plan? This needn’t happen.

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To find out more, consider downloading our eBook: No More: I Don’t Know What To Write Next… Lessons That Help Children Plan Great Writing.

Remember, eBooks are FREE for members.