Giving young writers genuine choice is the best way I know to create an environment where they can flourish. -Ralph Fletcher
Description of the principle
It is essential that children are given time to write for a sustained period every single day and to work on both class and personal writing projects. Personal projects should be seen as an important part of the writing curriculum since it is here, through exercising their own choice of subject, purpose, audience and writing process, that they have genuine autonomy and come to understand the true function of writing as an empowering and pleasurable activity which they can use now and in the future. Teachers will hold equally high expectations for personal writing projects as for class projects. Personal projects can provide the teacher with insights into children’s personalities and help build relationships, and can also provide evidence when assessing children’s development as independent writers.
What Writing For Pleasure teachers do
- Teachers understand how essential it is that children are given time to write for a sustained period every day and to work on both class and personal writing projects.
- Children are given timetabled opportunities to engage in personal writing projects. However, teachers also encourage personal writing to be pursued in little pockets of time throughout the week.
- Children transfer knowledge and skills learnt in class writing projects and use them expertly and successfully in their personal ones.
- Teachers set up routines where personal writing project books go to and fro between school and home every day. This means that children can be in a constant state of composition.
Reviewing your practice: questions to consider
- Do your children have personal writing books?
- How do you timetable regular and significant time for children to develop personal writing projects?
- How do you provide children with resources and strategies for generating writing ideas?
- How do you provide opportunities for children to write in collaboration with their peers on personal writing projects?
- How do you allow children to pursue their personal projects if they’ve finished the class writing goal for that lesson?
- How do you have high expectations and interest in both class and personal writing projects?
- How do you design your classroom and your instruction to ensure that children can pursue their personal projects largely independently?
- How do you promote the use of writing journals at school and at home and create links between the two?
- Are your children encouraged to work on any personal writing projects in any pockets of time available in the school day?
Examples from the classroom
Everyone’s An Expert
“Anyone wanna collab?” Personal writing projects go online!
Idea Hearts: Getting To The Heart Of It
Setting Up Personal Writing Project Books In KS1
Supporting resources
- A guide to personal writing projects & writing clubs for 3-11 year olds [LINK]
- How to support children writing at home [LINK]
Suggested further reading
- Young, R., Ferguson, F., (2023) The cognitive and motivational case for inviting children to generate their own writing ideas [LINK]
- Young, R., Ferguson, F., (2020) They won’t have anything to write about: the dangers of believing pupils are ‘culturally deprived’ [LINK]
- Young, R., Ferguson, F., (2020) Response to the National Literacy Trust’s survey of children’s writing under lockdown [LINK]
This chapter examines how the contemporary understanding of writing workshop has evolved from its naturalistic and self-expressionist beginnings. The authors then discuss the essential contribution personal writing projects make to a pupil-writer’s development and successful and meaningful practice. They explore the affective benefits personal writing projects afford children and how they are able to develop a sense of self and voice in their own writing. The authors then consider funds of identity and the principle of children harnessing their funds of knowledge. The authors reflect on their own research to present the profound relationship between children’s self-efficacy, self-regulation, and agency. They meditate on how children are able to balance the needs of the curriculum with their own writing desires. The authors reflect on why, despite a rich body of research to support such practice, personal writing projects remain on the periphery of the writing classroom and curriculum. Beyond this, the authors discuss excellent examples of practice and the opportunity 21st-century multiliteracies offer children in terms of pursuing personal writing projects. The chapter concludes with examples of effective practice from the classrooms of high-performing Writing For Pleasure teachers.
This chapter presents a rationale for children to use their own writers’ notebooks and to pursue personal writing projects through the planning of dedicated personal writing project weeks. It explains how providing substantial and sustained time for personal writing can have profound positive effects on children’s attitudes, writing progress and academic achievements. The chapter gives specific guidance on how teachers can set up writers’ notebooks with their class. It explains the connection between home- and school-based writing and gives advice on how to manage, organise and have high expectations for personal writing weeks. This includes advice on: keeping writing registers; encouraging daily writing momentum; setting up classroom and independent publishing houses and how to deal with children’s sensitive or contentious topic choices.
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