What Makes a Great Writing Lesson

or Programme?
Murray Gadd
2 March 2019

Under-Achievement in Writing

Ideas for Lessons

Spelling

Students’ Planning

Effective Teaching

Key Points About the Practices That We Need to Implement

Planning

Direct Instruction & Differentiation

Writing Monitoring Sheet

Typing Skills

Under-Achievement in Writing
● Critical years in writing are Years 3, 5, and 7 - level of under-achievement grows at these stages.
Likely because they are expected to transition from one level to another.
● Under-achievement figures are far higher for writing than they are for maths.
● Similar problems in the US and UK. UK has lowest performance in writing compared to other core
subject areas.
● Success in writing is vital to success in other curriculum areas.

Being “effective” means:

1. Engaging​ students in writing
2. Helping Ss make ​progress
3. Helping Ss reach expected level

Writing floats on a sea of talk.​ Oral language is key to writing.

Ideas for Lessons

● Play Ss “In the Hall of Mountain King” - ask them to imagine what is happening. Ss ​write​. No goals,
no rules, no criteria! Inspired by ​Once Upon an Ordinary School Day​ by Colin McNaughton.
● “Your job is to make a winter’s day ​come alive​ for your reader.” You can do it any way you wish.
First: go outside and explore the day, discuss. Gather ideas on board in classroom. Read some
Margaret Mahy writing about winter.
● Focus on selection of strong, precise ​verbs​, not adjectives. Verbs add so much more to a piece of
writing than the adjectives do.
● Writing a story about how you got a particular scar.
● “It was a good idea at the time.”
● Ss make their own version of the book ​Press Here ​by Herve Tullet. Would be great to use some te
reo, e.g. for positions and numbers. Greta way of getting Ss to write instructions.
● Read the story ​The Day the Crayons Quit​. “What could you do with this?” Two ideas:
○ Pretend to be Duncan, and respond to the pleadings from any crayon.
○ Pretend to be another item that Duncan might have (e.g. teddy bear, blanket) and write to
Duncan about your life. Here are examples from real children:
Prompt for the next sentence: Ask questions, elicit new information, then say “Maybe your reader needs to
know that.”

Spelling
44 sounds in English are represented by more than 1,200 letter combinations. There are over 30 ways of
representing the “e” sound in a word in English.
300 HFW make up 75% of any text. Should have most of them by the end of Year 4. “You’re not going to
Intermediate until you know those words!”
Students’ Planning
“All writers have to be well-planned, but sometimes the planning can happen and stay in your head.” E.g.
can’t leave the mat until they can tell you what they are going to write about.

Effective Teaching
Teachers must have good literacy-related knowledge.
● How ​words and sentences​ are formed
● Processes and strategies​ that writers use
● Structures and features​ of the major text forms

Also need to know what writers do as they write, including the stages that writers move ​between​ (you can
go back and forth during the process):
● Forming intentions/planning, strategies:
○ Need an idea/topic
○ Develop some content
○ Consider purpose, audience and text type - what does the audience need to know?
○ Vocabulary (key words), sequence, talk idea over and get feedback
● Crafting or composing text, strategies:
○ Write the first sentence, this is often the hardest!
○ Sounds you can hear
● Re-reading, reflecting on, re-crafting and presenting the text, strategies:
○ “Does it make sense?” - detail
○ “Does it sound right?” - grammatical fluency
○ “Have I used the best words that I can?”
○ “Have I been courteous to the reader?” - spelling, punctuation, handwriting

Focuses for different year groups:

Year 1-3 personal recounts, descriptions, simple reports, simple instructions, captions, labels and lists.
Year 4-10 recounts (personal and factual), descriptions, narratives, reports, persuasice texts, explanations.

Effective Literacy Practice in Year 1-4​, p138

Effective Literacy Practice in Year 5-8​, p153

Key Points About the Practices That We Need to

Implement
Components:
1. Instructional component, purposely teaching Ss. Should happen 4-5 times a week for juniors, less
time for seniors iff they are doing:
a. Lots of inquiry work where you can bring in the instructional teaching
b. Lots of independent work
Opportunities for Ss to be writing independently, at least 20 minutes per day about topics that matter
to them. Writing by and for themselves. This may include reflection time, inquiry, etc, and doesn’t
 have to be a consecutive 20 minutes in the day. Slowly build up this writing time. You need to write
too! Make a game out of it. At the end: read over and check it makes sense, count words to track
progress. ​Don’t ​mark it!
You may timetable this, or simply encourage them to write in their own time at school.
Offer topics (great for Ss who don’t know what to write about) as well as allowing self-selection of
topics.
Only look at it and give a comment on the content if asked. Never look at spelling or punctuation.
2. Ensure that students have something to say/write about. Write on a range of meaningful, authentic
and purposeful writing topics. Massive correlation between topic and achievement. Content should
be driven by:
a. Personal understandings, experiences and interests, give them some open topics:
i. What really annoys me…
ii. That was naughty!
iii. The first time I ever…
iv. Getting ready for a special occasion…
v. The funniest or scariest moment I ever had…
vi. When I was dared to do something…
vii. A person or place or event that is special to me…
viii. Something naughty or funny an animal I know has done...
b. Texts that students access - take a note of what they read and cater to these interests
c. Cross-curricular challenges and opportunities - writing about topic learning
3. Ensure that writing lessons are goal-oriented:
Discuss what writing challenges are in any task. “What am I going to have to be good at as a writer
to do this task well?”
What they are trying to get better at
What achievement/success looks like

Represent the process visually for juniors:

● Say your sentence before you write it. (Picture of lips)
● Keep it in your head (Drawing of stick figure with a thought bubble)
● What are your looking words? The ones around the classroom or in the teacher’s
modelling. (Picture of an eye)
● Finger spacing. (Picture of a finger)
● Add detail (Picture of +D in a circle)
● Include WOW words (Picture of WOW with sparkles coming out of it)
● Re-read (Picture of an R with an arrow going back)

4. Build on what children already know or can do

Can apply to the sub-word, word, sentence or text level, depending on the level of the child.
5. Task is clear to the child. Have to be able to leave the mat knowing:
a. What they have to do
b. What success looks like
c. How they are going to begin
6. Make constant links between reading and writing. There is a writer behind everything that we read,
and there is generally an audience for anything that you write.
7. Create a positive, enthusiastic mood in your classroom, so that children want to write. Safe to take
risks, ensure students have faith in their ability to succeed.
Planning
Start from your topic. Work through a similar plan to this one, working from the ​top down​!
Direct Instruction & Differentiation
Only model to a small group of children, not the whole class. Ss can choose to stay with you, and you invite
the ones that you know need to be with you. “Who wants to stay with me to help me get started, so that I
can help you to get started.”

Differentiate by:
1. Writing groups (better for Years 1-2, don’t do it beyond this point.)
2. Grouping around criteria in a task
3. To do a good job, you need to add detail and use interesting vocabulary. Tomorrow I’ll do a
workshop on adding detail, today you can come to me for help if you need help with your
vocabulary.
4. Form groups as needs arise. Focus is on needs, not ability. Hardest but best - hard because you
have to keep track of what everyone in your class is doing.
You have to ask yourself: Who needs what teaching and when?

Junior lesson:
1. Whole class on the mat, engage them in a topic, develop content, decide on task, and ask “What do
we need to be good at to do this task well?”
2. Time to move off. See two groups of children a day, some children won’t see you that day.

Middle/Senior Writing Lesson

1. Day 1: Whole class, purpose is to motivate and engage. Discuss content, task, what we need to be
good at.
a. “How could I write about this? I think I might explain what happens.”
b. “What do I have to be good at to do well with this?”
c. “Who is ready to have a go by themselves? Who needs to stay with me to help me get
started, so I can help you get started?” Do shared/guided writing with this group.
2. Day 2: Everyone on the mat, with their writing from yesterday. Ask:
a. Where are you up to?
b. What are you going to work on today?
Velcro where they are up to on the wall: planning, crafting or re-crafting. Can then work with little
groups as you need to.
Possible grouping:
i. See one group of children that is a set group every week - this way, you’ll see every child
once a week
ii. See needs-based groupings for the second half of the lesson
All feedback should be oral.
3. For children who finish faster than others, have independent literacy activities for them to work on.

Writing Monitoring Sheet

Read 5 books a night, identify needs and add them to the monitoring sheet. Can put a child’s name down
under as many needs as you like, but you only bring them down to the mat ONCE a week.
If this is overwhelming, then you could start off by only doing this with your target children.
Can create a follow-up booklet for the term, involving writing tasks. Ideas:
● Prompts
● Connections to books that have been read or movies they have watched
 ● VCOP pyramids (See Twinkl)

Typing Skills
May be a good idea to include this as a reading rotation? ​Nitro Type