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At The Writing For Pleasure Centre, we don’t believe that being a great writer is a gift bestowed on just a few lucky children. We don’t accept the romantic notion that we can just leave children to develop as writers naturally. We don’t cross our fingers and hope for the best. We appreciate that children, rightly, want to be made privy to what they need to do to create successful and meaningful texts and, importantly, how to do it.

Establishing success criteria (also known as: product goals, toolkits, ingredients, options, choices, or ‘craft moves’) is arguably one of the most powerful instructional strategies a teacher of writing can employ in their classroom (Young & Ferguson 2021a, 2023a, 2023b; Young & Hayden 2022). 

We want children to write the best text they possibly can. Our job as exceptional writing teachers is to make what can feel implicit, scary and confusing for them, explicit, useful and wholly attainable. The point is you’re making the covert overt for children as they begin to craft their own pieces of writing.

We’ve talked about how success criteria can go BADLY wrong in a previous article (LINK). However, in summary, they go wrong when they are:

• 🙅 Narrow (only focused on the use of grammar craft moves)
• 🤐 Constructed solely by the teacher
• 📚Not linked to reading mentor texts together
• 😡Imposed

To get success criteria right, we need to make sure that teachers and pupils:

• 📚 Read and discuss a host of quality mentor texts together (LINK)
• ❤️ Extract craft moves which you and the children agree would be good to use in their writing (LINK)
• 📝 Model how and why you use these craft moves in your own writing (LINK)
• ✍️ Invite children to use the ‘moves’ for themselves (LINK)

Importantly, in Writing For Pleasure schools, success criteria aren’t imposed. If a child hasn’t used a certain craft move in the context of their composition, they are instead asked to show how they could have used it. They do this at the revision stage of a project on their ‘trying things out page’. If they like what they’ve done, they have an opportunity to add what they’ve written into their final manuscript (Young & Ferguson 2022). However, they are not obliged. We believe this is the behaviour of greater-depth writers. They are showing how they could have used a certain craft move in the context of their own piece of writing if they wanted to, but made the authorial decision not to include it. 

This avoids the ‘overwriting’ that can sometimes occur when children are forced to include every single craft move in their final manuscript. We believe this is a sensible way of meeting the needs of the child as an agentic author, and at the same time meet the needs and expectations of the National Curriculum and assessment framework (LINK).

It’s important to note that in Writing For Pleasure schools children are also given time to pursue their own personal writing projects (Young & Ferguson 2021b). This gives students opportunities to craft some writing away from the daily demands of the curriculum and success criteria.

Academic research and case studies of the best performing writing teachers have shown that, when done well, establishing success criteria as part of your teaching practice can:

• 📈 Yield an effect-size of +2.03 (for context, anything over a +0.4 is generally considered to have a significant positive effect on children’s writing progress)
• 😃Increase children’s feelings of self-efficacy (writerly confidence)
• 💁Help children feel a sense of self-regulation (they feel they can write well independently)
• 🤗Improve children’s sense of agency (I have a say!)
• 🥳Increase children’s motivation to write (I know why…)
• 🏠Promote feelings of being part of a community of writers

(see Young & Ferguson 2021a, 2023b for more details)

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If you found this article useful and want more information, consider purchasing the following eBooks: Getting Success Criteria Right For Writing: Helping 3-11 Year Olds Write Their Best Texts (LINK), The Writing For Pleasure Centre’s Writing Development Scales & Assessment Toolkit (LINK) and Reading In The Writing Classroom: A Guide To Finding, Writing And Using Mentor Texts With Your Class (LINK).

Over the past two years, we’ve been introducing Writing For Pleasure class writing projects (The Writing For Pleasure Centre 2022) into our school’s programme of study (business as usual). I asked children to reflect on writing and being a writer before and after their introduction. These reflections were gathered by asking children to complete the Children As Writers survey at the beginning and towards the end of the academic year. 

What struck me were the distinctions made by many children between ‘business as usual’ writing units and Writing For Pleasure projects. Many children explicitly mentioned enjoying Writing For Pleasure projects and not enjoying lessons where they felt they were being ‘told what to do’. 

In the article below, I go into more detail about what those distinctions were and what impact they’ve had on my teaching going forward. 

Results from surveys before the introduction of Writing For Pleasure

The first theme that I identified was the idea that writing was boring and not enjoyable. When asked ‘What goes through your head when the teacher says: we are going to do some writing?’, responses included: ‘I do not want to do this’, ‘This will be long and hard’, and ‘boring’.

For example, one child said ‘I like some writing but not all. I don’t like being told what to write; I only like things I can decide.’ Similarly, another child said ‘Sometimes I really don’t want to do it, but if we’re going to do Writing For Pleasure projects or funner things I love it.’ One said he ‘only’ enjoys writing when it is Writing For Pleasure, and finds all other writing ‘boring’. 

One particularly powerful observation came from a child who said that when she thinks about writing she thinks of ‘a teacher telling you what to do but it is in your own words.’ She also distinguished between this type of writing (which is unenjoyable) with having choice (equated with enjoyment).

Their responses also revealed negative feelings around marking and feedback in our ‘business as usual’ lessons, versus the pupil-conferencing which occurs in Writing For Pleasure projects (Ferguson & Young 2021). Some children thought I was looking for mistakes when I was reading their writing: one wrote that I am looking for ‘vocabulary and corrections’ when I read his work, and another said I’m looking for ‘things to green highlight’ (green highlighter is used to indicate a mistake). One child made her (rightful) dislike for this explicit with this response: ‘Do you enjoy writing? Yes, because it lets me express my emotions and live in my own imaginary world. No, because when I get green highlighter I have to cross out something I like so I never feel my writing is MINE.’

This shows how problematic teacher marking was, and how it was having the total opposite effect it was meant to – instead of helping children, it was demotivating and disempowering. In contrast, pupil-conferencing helps the children in a way that is empowering and effective.

Results from surveys after the introduction of Writing For Pleasure

In contrast to the first writing surveys (in September 2021), there was no mention of writing as boring in the second writing surveys (in April 2022). I think this is arguably due to the fundamental principle of topic choice in the Writing For Pleasure projects; children are taught how to choose and write on topics which interest them most (Young & Ferguson 2022). 

Overall, the children’s responses were much more positive after completing two Writing For Pleasure projects. 

• More children indicated that they were now writing at home, 
• 100% of children thought that they ‘often’ or ‘sometimes’ have a choice about what they write,
• 100% of them thought that I personally write ‘always’ or at least ‘often’ outside of school. 

Most importantly, there was lots of mention of enjoyment of writing – more than 10 children mentioned this explicitly. There was no mention of not enjoying my feedback (and green pen) this time around.

I think these responses are due to a variety of teaching practices I introduced. I think it’s mainly due to the fact that I was writing at the beginning of every lesson; thinking aloud and discussing my choices. I would ask their opinion on my craft choices. My writing was genuine. I showed my exhilaration and frustration, and talked openly about the challenges I find with writing. Also, during the pupil-conferencing, I would reference difficulties with my own compositions to share vulnerabilities or something I’d found helpful in the mini lessons I’d previously taught.

For example, “I enjoy writing because I love learning.”, “I get excited because writing is my passion. It is my favourite thing to do.”, ‘What goes through your head: “Yay writing one of the best things.” , “I love writing”, ‘What goes through your head: “Yes I want to do this.” “It is so fun”, ‘What goes through your head: ‘YES, writing my favourite”. “It lets me express myself through words.”, “I am really excited… It is really fun and enjoyable”, “Happy because I love writing.”

I also identified a theme of writing being seen as ‘therapeutic’. This seemed particularly important for those children with additional learning needs or had a lot going on at home. One child, who is currently assigned a social worker and is a CIN, talked about how writing made her ‘feel calm, and took her to her happy place’. She wrote ‘I really enjoy getting all of my stress and anger, I do writing to calm me at home.’ This is in keeping with the findings of a recent National Literacy Trust survey into children’s writing habits during lockdown (Clark et al. 2021).

Similarly, three of the children in my class who are in the process of being diagnosed with SEND, and who are working significantly below the level of the year group, were incredibly enthusiastic in their responses in the second survey. These are children who traditionally struggle to access the Year 5 writing curriculum, and two of whom are particularly difficult to motivate and who find being in the classroom quite stressful. These two children both mention our Writing For Pleasure projects explicitly (‘what goes through my head is journals’ and ‘you get to do whatever you like’). For all three of these children, the Writing For Pleasure projects have had a hugely positive impact on their self esteem, particularly after sharing their work during ‘Author’s Chair’ (Harris 2020).

However, I did still have some children with negative responses. Interestingly, they were all from my most experienced writers. There was mention of ‘frustration’, ‘stress’, ‘it hurts my brain’ and ‘I don’t like it’. There was also explicit mention of ‘a deadline’ being stressful.

On reflection, I think some of this response can be explained by me sometimes neglecting these students who are more competent writers, and thus who I (wrongly) assumed had more robust attitudes around their writing. I tend to focus more on my less experienced writers during writing lessons. It has also made me think very carefully about how to give constructive, empowering feedback – I think perhaps with some of my ‘greater-depth’ writers, I may have been slightly less sensitive with my feedback, thinking that they were more confident and that feedback could be quicker, so I could focus on struggling writers. I think this response could be addressed by giving these children more specific, positive praise (Ferguson & Young 2021). 

In fact classes’ responses as a collective have reinforced my belief in the power of positive, specific praise. I think I do this much more with my least experienced writers, thus they feel more positive about writing, and I need to do this more consistently with all writers in my class.

My actions for next year

My first, immediate action is to stop using green highlighter when I mark their compositions. Now I only use pink highlighter (to indicate that I felt something was effective/done really well), and use my verbal feedback through conferencing to discuss the potential for their pieces and possible improvements they can make. Furthermore, instead of going around while they are writing and correcting their spellings, I give them time at the end of writing time to look at their manuscripts and see if there are any words they think they may have misspelt (what we call ‘unsure spellings’). Once they have done this, they have time to use different strategies to check the spellings (use a dictionary, ask a friend, ask the teacher) and I work together with children who need extra support doing this.

I’m going to try addressing children’s feelings of ‘stress’ around deadlines by bringing them more into the conversation. We can decide together what we feel is a suitable amount of time to get certain writing processes done. For example, ‘do you think we need an extra session for proof-reading?’, ‘do we think we could get our drafts finished by Thursday – OK – let’s aim for that’. I’m also going to plan a mini-lesson where I share how other writers manage their process and set themselves deadlines (Young et al. 2021).

By Ciara Lawlor

In A Classroom Guide To Getting Your Year Right For Writing, writer-teachers Ross Young, Tobias Hayden and Felicity Ferguson share their secrets about having a great year of writing with your pupils. 

With so many things to attend to and consider at the beginning of an academic year, quality time to think about what your writing teaching will look like is often at a premium. This eBook shows you how to gain that time, and how to use it productively for the benefit of both yourself and your class.

Spend the first two weeks following our advice and carry out a successful Welcome Project, which will help children in a friendly and reassuring way understand what writing and being a writer is going to mean in your class or school.

This eBook provides:

• A suggested welcome project for setting children up in the EYFS as book-makers
• An example of a welcome project for KS1  
• An example of a welcome project for KS2
• Over 40 illustrated lesson examples and visuals taken from real classrooms and from the work of expert practitioners
• Top tips from practising teachers
• Answers to frequently asked questions  

This book is essential reading for writing coordinators and teachers. By undertaking quality Welcome Projects, you learn what your pupils need from you to write happily and successfully. You can be sure that you will have laid the groundwork for a year that’s right for writing.

£5.95 – Individual license

£29.75 – School/Institution license

or FREE for members

Children read stories, poems and letters differently when they see these texts as things they themselves could produce – Frank Smith

Establishing product goals (also known as success criteria or writing checklists) with your class for a writing project is one the most effective things a teacher of writing can do. Research shows that setting writing goals can yield an effect size of +2.03. For context, anything over +0.4 is considered to have a significant positive effect on children’s writing development.

Setting product goals is related to another evidence-based writing practice too: the studying of mentor texts. In Writing For Pleasure schools, product goals are established by the teacher and children together and only after studying and discussing a variety of mentor texts. This should typically be a whole collection of texts which match the kind of writing the children are going to be writing as part of the class writing project. Studying mentor texts prior to writing their own can yield an effect size of +0.76 (for children with SEND, this can be anything up to +0.94).

Product goals, at their best, are decided upon jointly between you and your class. They will include the things you all think you will need to do or include for your compositions to be engaging, successful and meaningful. Product goals are absolutely not limited to grammatical features or text conventions. When you ask your class your first most challenging and exciting question: What will we have to do to make these the best short stories that were ever written?, we won’t be expecting the main response to be ‘capital letters’ (important as this is), or ‘grammar’. We will want firstly to hear children identifying things which connect with the essence of the project. The following authentic set of product goals shows what we mean:

Here you’ll notice writer-teacher Tobias Hayden writes ‘see class poster’ next to some of the goals. This is to tell the children that they’ve already received a lesson on this ‘craft move’ (Young et al. 2021) this year and that there is a poster on display in the classroom which explains how to do it.

In contrast, here is a real example of an ineffective list of product goals I saw recently on Twitter. Let me explain the problem with this particular checklist:

Firstly, you can’t hear the pupils’ voices and goals in this list. You don’t get a sense of what it is this community of writers want to achieve in their pieces. You can tell that these goals haven’t been arrived at collaboratively with the teacher and only after studying a variety of mentor texts together – mentor texts which match the kind of writing the class is looking to produce for themselves.

Almost all of the goals are too vague to be useful. They are not linked to the use of specific craft moves and we know from research that this is important for future instruction (see LINK). For example: ‘language devices’ or ‘grammar’ aren’t nearly good enough. These need unpacking and made explicit by naming specific craft moves. What craft moves have you and the children decide you want to try and apply? 

Finally, we can see that compositional goals and goals for proof-reading are being thrown in all together. This is such a shame. As we know, revision and proof-reading are completely different cognitive processes and each deserves its own instructional time, checklist, and attention to be done at its best (Young & Ferguson 2022).

In conclusion, you don’t want to produce product goals which look like this example.

1. You don’t want to produce a list of product goals on the children’s behalf during your planning and preparation time. This is just a terrible writing teaching crime!
2. You don’t want to give them a list that is out of context – without first letting the children participate in the study of mentor texts (LINK). 
3. You don’t want your list to be depressing – failing to share with the children why any of these craft moves will be so useful for the project.
4. Though incredibly important, you don’t want a list which is exclusively about grammar craft moves (LINK).
5. You don’t want to include things to do with proof-reading – these can have their own checklist and be discussed later into a project (LINK).

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How you read mentor texts with your class and record product goals is important, and it’s not an easy thing to do. It takes expertise and practice. For more information, see our eBooks entitled Getting Success Criteria Right for Writing: Helping 3-11 Year Olds Write Their Best Texts (Young & Hayden 2022) and Reading In The Writing Classroom: A guide to finding, writing and using mentor texts and with your class (Young & Ferguson 2023).

‘Writing Realities: Examining new directions in writing research, instruction and learning’

Guest editors: Ross Young, Doug Kaufman (University of Connecticut), Felicity Ferguson

This special issue of Literacy will highlight new directions in writing research and instruction through the voices of international scholars and practitioners. It will present and extend recent research suggesting several core principles that must be attended to for effective learning of writing to occur (Young et al. 2022). These include: writer-identity, critical literacies, culturally sustaining pedagogy, multiliteracies, translanguaging and intertextuality. 

Due to the increasing centralisation and commercialisation of writing instruction, pupils are routinely required to leave their own identities, cultural capital, thoughts, opinions and knowledge outside the writing classroom door. Through the rigid interpretation of national curriculums and published schemes, students may be required to take on a monocultural identity that doesn’t always honour or take advantage of their rich ideas and experiences. Learners from a variety of social positions –including those from diverse cultural, racial and ethnic backgrounds– can feel alienated from writing because they have not typically received an apprenticeship in becoming autonomous and confident writers who carry with them a strong personal and collective writer-identity once they leave school. However, this special issue invites you to share how innovative instruction driven by some of the principles highlighted above can introduce opportunities for young people to take personal responsibility for their writing and learn how to harness their own authorial agency. In the process, they may also learn how to live, work and represent others within an inclusive, outwardly loving community of writers.

This issue will be organised in a way that presents a cohesive portrait of the innovative shifts in research and instruction that the writing education field is currently experiencing. First, we would like it to outline the research and theoretical constructs driving these shifts, offering a context, an argument, and a direction for the reform and revision of traditional curricula and teaching. Next, we wish to share examples of effective writing instruction from across the spectrum of learner development, starting in the early years and moving through to further and adult education. Finally, we invite authors to present models for preparing pre-service and practicing teachers to engage in effective classroom instruction.

In summary, for this special issue, we are asking for contributions from scholars and practitioners working in different circumstances, paradigms and research traditions to submit papers that discuss and explore any of the following:

• Writer-identity
• Critical literacies
• Culturally sustaining writing pedagogies
• The physical, social, and cultural contexts of building a community of writers 
• Translanguaging
• Intertextuality in the writing classroom
• Teacher writers and action research

Submission instructions

Please send a 500-word abstract, title and short bio from each author to guest editor, Ross Young at literacyforpleasure [at] gmail.com by November 1, 2023.

For any questions concerning this special issue, please contact Ross Young at literacyforpleasure [at] gmail.com.

References

• Young, R., Ferguson, F., Kaufman, D., Govender, N. (2022) Writing Realities Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre

Have you heard of SRSD instruction? SRSD stands for self-regulation strategy development. Sounds quite posh and complicated doesn’t it? It’s actually incredibly grounded and easy to understand. SRSD instruction is about teaching children strategies which enable them to be independent writers by using for themselves what they’ve just been taught. It’s one of the most validated and effective practices a teacher of writing can employ in their classroom (Harris et al. 2006; Graham et al. 2011; McQuitty, 2014; Koster et al. 2015; Sun et al. 2022). That’s why it appears as one of our 14 principles of world-class writing teaching (Young & Ferguson 2020, 2021a, 2022a, 2022b).

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 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). 

This type of grammar instruction typically goes something like this:

If your teaching of these grammar craft moves is well planned and, above all, responsive to what your pupils need instruction in most, then, over time, children will internalise these strategies for themselves and so become confident, agentic, personally responsible and independent writers (Young & Ferguson 2020; Young et al. 2021).

It’s important to remember that the stages shared above constitute a good guide. However, teachers should also feel free to experiment with them if they want to. The professional judgement made by a particular teacher might be that a certain stage could be omitted altogether and that another stage might need more time devoted to it. For example, some teachers like children to practise the craft move prior to using it in their own writing, while others find this an unnecessary distraction. Some like to model the craft move live, and create their poster in front of their class, while others like to have made their poster prior to the lesson, or to share writing they have already crafted.

Finally, it’s essential to recognise that this is only one of the principles of world-class writing teaching. The reality is that it works best when interconnected with the other principles (Young & Ferguson 2021a). In particular:

• Pursue purposeful and authentic class writing projects (The Writing For Pleasure Centre 2022)
• Set writing goals (Young & Hayden 2022)
• Teach the writing processes (Young et al. 2021)
• Balance composition and transcription (Young et al. 2021)
• Be reassuringly consistent (Young & Ferguson 2020, 2021c, 2021d)
• Be a writer-teacher (UKLA 2022)
• Pupil-conference: meet children where they are (Ferguson & Young 2021)

You can find out more about any of these principles by using this link or by downloading, for free, our Handbook Of Research On Teaching Young Writers (2023).

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Finally, if you’d like to read, see and use real classroom examples of SRSD instruction, you may wish to purchase any of the following publications:

References:

• Ferguson, F., Young, R. (2021) A Guide To Pupil-conferencing With 3-11 Year Olds: Powerful Feedback & Responsive Teaching That Changes Writers Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Graham, S., Harris, K., Mason, L. (2011) Self-regulated strategy development for students with writing difficulties, Theory Into Practice, 50(1), 20–27
• Harris, K.R., Graham, S., Mason, L. (2006) Improving the writing, knowledge, and motivation of struggling young writers: Effects of self-regulated strategy development with and without peer support, American Educational Research Journal, 43, 295–337
• Koster, M., Tribushinina, E., De Jong, P.F., Van de Bergh, B. (2015) Teaching children to write: A meta-analysis of writing intervention research, Journal of Writing Research, 7(2), 249–274
• McQuitty, V. (2014) Process-oriented writing instruction in elementary classrooms: Evidence of effective practices from the research literature, Writing & Pedagogy, 6(3), 467–495
• Sun, T., Wang, C., Wang, Y. (2022) The effectiveness of self-regulated strategy development on improving English writing: Evidence from the last decade, Reading & Writing
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2020) Real-World Writers London: Routledge
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2021a) Writing For Pleasure: Theory, Research & Practice London: Routledge
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2021b) The Writing For Pleasure Centre’s Grammar Mini-Lessons For 5-11 Year Olds Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2021c) A Quick Guide To Teaching Writing In The EYFS Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2021d) A Quick Guide To Teaching Writing In KS1 Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. Hayden, T., Vasques, M. (2021) The Writing For Pleasure Centre’s Big Book Of Mini-Lessons: Lessons That Teach Powerful Craft Knowledge For 3-11 Year Olds Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2022b) The Science Of Teaching Primary Writing Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2022c) The Writing For Pleasure Centre’s Sentence-Level Instruction: Lessons That Help Children Find Their Style And Voice Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Hayden, T. (2022) Getting Success Criteria Right For Writing: Helping 3-11 Year Olds Write Their Best Texts Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre
• Young, R., Ferguson, F. (2023) Handbook Of Research On Teaching Young Writers Brighton: The Writing For Pleasure Centre

This is a great question. Firstly, there are different types of shared writing. 

Sharing your writing

There is quite literally the idea of sharing your writing by crafting mentor texts for your class to discuss and read. These texts should match what you’re expecting the children to produce as part of a class writing project. Research has shown that this kind of practice can yield an effect size of +0.76 (+0.94 for children with SEND). For context, anything over +0.4 is considered to have a significant positive effect on children’s writing development. You can read more about this here.

Incidentally, if you establish product goals for a class writing project in response to studying a variety of mentor texts, this can yield an effect size of +2.03  You can read more about this here. 

Shared writing

Next, there is shared writing. Modelling how to use certain craft moves 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. Case studies show that the most effective writing teachers use shared writing when teaching ‘craft knowledge’ (Young et al. 2021), ‘sentence-level strategies’ (Young & Ferguson 2022c) and ‘functional grammar lessons’ (Young & Ferguson 2021b). You can read more about shared writing here.

‘Write alouds’

You also have the idea of write alouds. This is the writing version of ‘read aloud’ time. This is an opportunity for teachers and children to come together and write something collaboratively (shared), for pleasure, as a community of writers (Young & Ferguson 2020). This can be done on an IWB or some flipchart paper. Write alouds can be done in a single sitting or over multiple sessions. 

Sharing the writer’s life

Finally, there is the concept of sharing your writer’s life. This is about modelling how to be and live as a writer. You can read more about this here. Sharing your writer’s life and writing alongside your pupils during writing time can yield an effect size of +0.54. For children with SEND, this can be anything up to +2.48 (Young & Ferguson 2023b).

Motivation (also related to ideas around goal theory; self-determination; engaging instruction; writer attitude and interest, and value theory) is closely associated with the concept of writing for pleasure (Young & Ferguson 2021).

Teachers should give special attention to practices which foster a positive disposition; children need to feel the relevance and importance of writing because, as Bruning and Horn (2000) rightly say, motivation is often what gets them through this cognitively demanding act successfully.

A possible hierarchy of children’s affective emotional writerly needs as articulated by Young & Ferguson 2021

The body of research looking specifically into children’s motivation to write is strong and growing (Young & Ferguson 2021, 2023). A lack of motivation can often be at the heart of writing underperformance, and attending to this is just as important for academic attainment as focusing on cognitive learning. Empirical findings consistently show how motivational factors are positively and directly related to students’ writing performance and achievement (Young & Ferguson 2021, 2023).

There are many different types of motivation that can be felt in the writing classroom. They all involve children knowing the value of writing and of being a writer. They are also about children knowing for themselves why they are making the writing they are crafting.

• Attainment motivation – feeling a sense of wanting to write the best text they can.
• Utility motivation – feeling a sense that learning about writing will be important in the future.
• Intrinsic motivation – feeling a sense of personal enjoyment and satisfaction from producing the writing they are working on.
• External motivation – feeling a sense of external pressure or punishment if they don’t produce their best writing. Alternatively, knowing a reward will be given for producing the best writing they can.
• Situational motivation – feeling a sense of excitement about writing from those around them in class. This is about feeling part of a community of writers.

Teachers can help improve children’s motivation by employing the following strategies:

1. Develop yourself as an enthusiastic writer-teacher (Young & Ferguson 2020, 2021a).
2. Pursue purposeful and authentic class writing projects (The Writing For Pleasure Centre 2023).
3. Establish publishing goals for class writing projects (LINK).
4. Show children mentor texts which match the kind of writing they are about to make (Ferguson & Young 2023).
5. Establish product goals (success criteria) for a class writing project with your class (Young & Hayden 2022). Discuss how these goals are orientated towards helping the class produce their very best writing.
6. Let children generate their own writing ideas within the parameters of a class writing project. Let children write on topics they are knowledgeable and/or passionate about (Young & Ferguson 2022, 2023; Young et al. 2022).
7. Teach writerly techniques and processes through self-regulation strategy instruction. Ensure you explain why the technique will be useful to children before inviting them to use and apply the technique in the context of their developing composition that day (LINK).
8. Setting clear process goals for writing sessions (LINK).
9. Ensure children have opportunities to pursue their own personal writing projects at school and at home (Young & Ferguson 2021b).
10. Show enthusiasm for children’s compositions through your daily pupil-conferencing. Make sure you always celebrate quality craft (Ferguson & Young 2021).
11. Give children an opportunity to check their drafted piece against the goals established for the class project (Young & Hayden 2022).
12. Break proof-reading down into short, small and manageable chunks (Young & Ferguson 2022b).
13. Organise a ‘publishing party’ to celebrate the end of a class writing project (LINK).

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.

Research has shown that there is a profound connection between effective writing instruction and reading. 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.

With this in mind, please find a list of some of our absolute favourite mentor texts that we like to use as part of Writing For Pleasure class writing projects (2023).

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To find out more about reading effectively in the writing classroom, why not take a look at our eBook: Reading In The Writing Classroom: A Guide To Finding, Writing And Using Mentor Texts With Your Class.

Research has shown that there is a profound connection between effective writing instruction and reading. 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.

Too often we see teachers explaining to children that a story must have a problem and a solution. Children groan as another story mountain planning sheet is handed out (Young & Ferguson 2023). Problem-solution stories don’t regularly match the types of picturebooks, short stories, flash-fiction and other literature children love to read. It’s therefore important that the mentor texts we share with children reflect the different types of fiction that are available to them. This way, children know they can write in these ways too as part of a class writing project. The six most common story arcs used in children’s literature are:

• Steady rise (rag to riches)
• Steady fall (riches to rags)
• Fall-rise (man in hole)
• Rise-fall (Macbeth)
• Rise-fall-rise (Cinderella)
• Fall-rise-fall (The boy who cried wolf)

In addition you have circular (a character returning to the place or the circumstances where the story began) and cumulative stories (with a new thing on every page adding to what’s gone before). 

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To find out more about teaching reading effectively in the writing classroom, why not take a look at our eBook: Reading In The Writing Classroom: A Guide To Finding, Writing And Using Mentor Texts With Your Class.

To find out more about teaching narrative story arcs to children, why not take a look at our eBook: No More: I Don’t Know What To Write Next… Lessons That Help Children Plan Great Writing.