Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 Developing Consistent Writing Skills

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 1.In most areas students are heavily assessed through their ability to write 2.Writing has been a neglected area of teaching - in ALL subjects Why is a consistent approach to writing so important?

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 What progress have you made on “writing” so far in your own school?

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 Improving writing: S even S uggestions 1: Keep it simple: just go for the writing essentials in each subject area, one by one if necessary 2: Avoid technical terms as much as possible 3: Emphasise demonstration and modelling more than scaffolding 4: Develop a ‘House style’ on teaching writing 5: Get it bedded into the team itself, rather than being driven by you 6: Emphasise motivation and outcomes 7: Evaluate impact … and report it

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 Deeveloping a ‘House’ Style

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 HOUSE STYLE 1Before pupils start to write, get them thinking about the purpose and audience. What is this text for? What is it designed to achieve? Who is it aimed at?

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 HOUSE STYLE 2Define the conventions of the writing: How should it be organised (chronologically? non- chronologically?) Present or past tense? Active (“We added some potassium”) or passive (“some potassium was added”)? What types of sentences (short? long? bullet-points? statements? questions? commands?) How are connectives used to link ideas: temporal (later, now, next) or causal (because, so, despite this, on the other hand) Any stock words or phrases (“Dear sir.. yours faithfully”) Any technical terms?

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 HOUSE STYLE 3 Demonstrate the writing process – pupils need to see you write a sample of the text

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 HOUSE STYLE 5Use scaffolding to support them: Key words on wall Diagrams of the structure of this text type A glossary in their books Writing frames to teach layout, structure and style

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 HOUSE STYLE Remember: You won’t get better writing from students if you aren’t explicit about what you expect You need to embed these techniques into your practice. Don’t try them for one lesson and then dismiss them. They do work. Guaranteed.

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 HOUSE STYLE So how explicit do subject teachers need to be about writing conventions? … and do they need to USE these terms? Connectives? Word classes? Modification? Clauses? Passive voice? Tenses? Topic sentences? Declaratives? Noun phrases? Do they need to know about … Talking point! 4-2-8

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 HOUSE STYLE Your challenge: Convince the teaching team - ie what’s in it for them? Develop their awareness of the writing conventions Help them learn how to teach the writing skills effectively Evaluate the impact

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 Keep it simple: “less is more” Show how it will improve their lives Use Dept meetings to embed the thinking before unleashing it Think of practical activities to internalise the thinking Keep it light, upbeat, fun Aim for small-scale successes HINTSHINTS

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 HOUSE STYLE Familiarising staff (teachers and teaching assistants) with text-type conventions … … first: focus on the essentials …

Literacy Across the Curriculum Evaluation, including self-evaluation 1 Purpose: to record the strengths/weaknesses of a performance/product 2 Structure (Text level) Opening statement contains value judgement in answer to a question e.g. How well did your construction work? Can be written in list form with bullet points, numbers or letters Subheadings may be used to focus attention of writer Paragraphs should contain statement of strengths or weaknesses with evidence to support statements Summary will sum up strengths and weaknesses and may be followed by targets for future 3 Language features (Word and Sentence level) Written in first person (I or we) Written in past tense to reflect on performance; present to reflect on personal/group characteristics; future for target setting Connectives relate to comparison/contrast e.g. although, however, still, on the other hand or cause and effect e.g. because, since, therefore, as a result Phrases used for commentary e.g. we felt that, it seemed as if, we might have, I thought that.. 2 HOUSE STYLE

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 So how will you get these conventions embedded in Departmental thinking …? THINK TANK

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 Barton’s suggestions: It has to be done actively It has to involve teachers themselves writing, not just analysing existing texts Try writing ‘bad’models

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 The process … The product …

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 “How pleased are you with your finished product?” First, write the opening paragraph of a bad example. Then we’ll write a better one. Then we’ll demonstrate shared composition.

Literacy Across the Curriculum Evaluation, including self-evaluation 1 Purpose: to record the strengths/weaknesses of a performance/product 2 Structure (Text level) Opening statement contains value judgement in answer to a question e.g. How well did your construction work? Can be written in list form with bullet points, numbers or letters Subheadings may be used to focus attention of writer Paragraphs should contain statement of strengths or weaknesses with evidence to support statements Summary will sum up strengths and weaknesses and may be followed by targets for future 3 Language features (Word and Sentence level) Written in first person (I or we) Written in past tense to reflect on performance; present to reflect on personal/group characteristics; future for target setting Connectives relate to comparison/contrast e.g. although, however, still, on the other hand or cause and effect e.g. because, since, therefore, as a result Phrases used for commentary e.g. we felt that, it seemed as if, we might have, I thought that.. 2 HOUSE STYLE

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 Hints for achieving better teaching of writing at your school: Focus on impact - what do you need to do which will have the desired effect? That’s more important than HOW you get there Find ways of getting it bedded into the teams: your role as coordinator is not to teach writing better; it’s their responsibility Use light, active inset sessions (eg dept meetings) in which they do some writing and think how to teach it better … with guidance Don’t spend much time getting people to analyse models - it’s not always a transferable skill Use a student survey to give evidence of what works best in teaching writing Keep the writing theme in the public eye through staff newsletters, displays, hints and tips. Keep it light and positive Providing annotated models of text types on the wall is a good end product for student reference … but teacher demonstration is much more important Don’t assume that any of this will be quick or easy to achieve … but work with your Head to give it high priority with all staff And remember: “Less is more”. If you can get 10% of your staff teaching writing well by next July, that will have a huge impact. Be realistic. Go for small-scale gains

Literacy Across the Curriculum 2 Developing Consistent Writing Skills