Accuracy in Key Stage 3 Writing:
a case study of students' writing in a mixed secondary school
Wasyl Cajkler and Chris Comber (University of Leicester)
Paper presented to BERA, September 2003
Heriot-Watt University, Edinburgh
In recent years, concerns about the accuracy of students’ writing in Key Stages 2 and 3 have
been expressed in a variety of reports, (OfSTED 1999: 6; 2002; QCA, 2002). HMI (2000)
indicated that the teaching of writing in primary school was a significant concern, reporting
that too many pupils were unable to produce sustained accurate writing by the end of Key
Stage 2. The 1999 OfSTED evaluation of the first year of the National Literacy Strategy noted
that it was uncommon to see elements of the writing process being taught as part of a
sequence of lessons:
‘Pupils were rarely required to produce grammatically complex sentences, showing different
types of sentence connectives, adverbial phrases, imaginative vocabulary, precise use of
language or an understanding between standard English and colloquial use of dialect forms’
(paragraph 84, page 15).
Allen (2002: 6) acknowledges concerns about literacy especially in relation to underachieving
boys in secondary English, in particular their writing skills.
Since the introduction of the National Literacy and KS3 Strategies, there has been greater
focus on formal features of language in writing (e.g. Grammar for Writing, DfEE, 2000). The
National Curriculum expresses the expectation that during KS3 and 4, students will learn to
write Standard English correctly, using appropriate ways of presenting their work. ‘Students
should be taught about the variations in written standard English and how they differ from
spoken language, and to distinguish varying degrees of formality, selecting appropriately for a
task’ (NC English, 1999, p. 38). In addition, students are taught word classes and their
grammatical functions. They should also be taught to recognise standard and non-standard
grammar. When teaching Standard English, teachers are advised of the following common
non-standard usages that occur in England:







subject-verb agreement (e.g. they was)
formation of past tense (have fell, I done)
formation of negatives (ain’t)
formation of adverbs (come quick)
use of demonstrative pronouns (them books)
use of pronouns (me and him went)
use of prepositions (out the door) (ibid.: p. 32).
Literacy Across the Curriculum (DfEE, 2001) also expressed concerns about formal features
in students’ writing such as grammar, punctuation, spelling and paragraphing. Allison, Beard
and Willcocks (2002) argue for the investigation of students’ writing in order to assist schools
in designing programmes to promote writing. Their study of the use of subordinate clauses by
7-9 year olds concluded that children may benefit from targeted approaches that seek to
develop this skill in children’s writing. More importantly, they argue that teachers can quite
significantly influence the development of writing of their students through “levels of
expectation, the careful provision of tasks and the quality of intervention” (2002: 110).
There are concerns about writing development being left to chance. Alexander and Currie
cite the work of Nightingale (1998) saying that if writing is just left to look after itself “the
1
outcome will be writers who just ramble on” (p. 43). The more teachers know about students’
writing, the better prepared they can be to intervene to support the development of writing.
So, interest in secondary school children’s writing has grown in recent years and has
undoubtedly been promoted by the emergence of SATs and the work of the QCA in assessing
end of Key Stage assessments of children’s writing. Reporting on KS3 writing, the QCA
(2001, 2002) identified a number of trends in children’s writing with regard to punctuation.
These included:
 75% correct use of full stops to end sentences;
 spelling errors at between 4 and 5 per hundred words;
 inappropriate use of the comma or failure to use full stops;
 omitting 45% of commas used to demarcate clauses;
 difficulties with the apostrophe particularly the possessive apostrophe;
 difficulties for some learners in managing complex sentences.
Part of the case study reported in the present paper sought to discover the extent to which the
above features were evident in the writing of 12-14 years in one school, as well as
grammatical errors and intrusions from non-standard English (NSE).
One of the most informative recent studies of accuracy in writing was the Technical Accuracy
Project (QCA, 1999, a, b), which studied English GCSE scripts (course work and final tasks
for the 1998 examination) of 144 candidates at borderline grades of A, C and F. The study
explored the performance of students in punctuation, spelling, sentence and clause structure,
use of word classes, textual organisation, paragraphing and occurrences of non-standard
English. While – somewhat predictably – the research found a positive association between
grade and accuracy, it was also able to identify typical differences between the three grades.
For example ‘A’ grade writers made one spelling error per hundred words, while ‘F ‘grade
writers made six errors per hundred (1999a: 6). When punctuating, the less successful writers
had a tendency to omit full stops or to use a comma splice. Less successful writers wrote
shorter sentences and used more finite verbs than A grade candidates.
The study
In the light of concern about literacy standards, we were invited to investigate writing in a
mixed secondary school. The background to the investigation was a concern in the school
about boys’ relative underachievement in this area. This latter issue, discussed in some detail
in an unpublished report to the school and briefly addressed here, will be reported in a
forthcoming paper. The main focus of the present conference paper, however, is the accuracy
of pupils’ writing in terms of punctuation, spelling and grammar, and potential strategies for
improving these aspects of writing.
Methods
The investigation was conducted during the spring and summer terms of 2002 involving a
range of data collection procedures:
Questionnaire survey of students’ attitudes: This explored students' attitudes towards
school and schooling, with a section particularly focussed on aspects of literacy.
Semi-structured interviews with selected students: The interviews extended issues raised
in the survey, and concerned attitudes towards and experiences of school and learning in
general, with a specific focus on literacy.
2
Semi-structured interviews with selected staff: Members of the management team along
with teachers representing a range of curriculum areas were interviewed about attitudes and
strategies for addressing literacy deficits.
Observations of classroom practice in selected lessons.
Analysis of school documentation: including the school literacy strategy, the school
development plan (SDP), and the Performance and Assessment (PANDA) report.
Examples of student writing: A distinction was made between what we termed ‘rehearsed
writing’ (homework or coursework) and ‘unrehearsed writing’ which was writing that we
elicited during one of our visits to the school. It is with the examples of student writing that
the present paper is concerned, drawing principally on analysis of writing taken from Years 8
and 9.
Students were asked to write a short piece of personal or narrative writing, with no in-class
input, preparation or rehearsal other than a choice of tasks (see Appendix 1). 35 pieces of
'unrehearsed' personal or narrative writing, elicited from groups in Years 8 and 9, were
analysed for content, register and accuracy of expression. These samples of writing were
taken from the whole ability range and from both boys and girls, 6 of the 35 students
appearing on the schools’ register of special needs.
Each piece of writing was then assessed against current National Curriculum criteria and was
further analysed with regard to spelling, punctuation, use of conjunctions, clause and sentence
structure (simple, complex and compound) and use of paragraphs, using the Technical
Accuracy Project’s coding schedules (QCA, 1999b).
Following these analyses, three stratified samples of homework from each year group,
selected as representing high, mid and low levels of writing ability, were examined against
similar criteria. 11 students provided samples of homework or coursework in the following
subjects: RE (4), English or English Literature (14), Geography (12), Science (4). We were
interested to discover to what extent students in Years 8 and 9 were able to produce sustained
accurate writing. For this paper, we have focused principally on errors and clause use.
Findings
Accuracy in students’ unrehearsed writing
This section reports on the sentence level features analysed. A difficulty with this type of
analysis is that some of the observations are subjective. As a result, while findings about
spelling can be treated with some degree of certainty, those relating to punctuation need to be
tempered with observations about the variations of native speaker practice in punctuation,
most notably with regard to the use of the comma to demarcate clause boundaries. Grammar
for Writing (DfEE, 2000) and the Year 7 Sentence Level Bank (DfEE, 2001) offer advice on
this issue with great firmness but there is a significant amount of variation in actual usage.
Clause Use
Clause use in Year 8 and 9 unrehearsed writing is summarised in the following table.
Table 1: Clause use in unrehearsed writing
Year-group
& gender
Total clauses
Identifiable
sentences
Clauses
co-ordinated
with ‘and’
3
Subordinate
conjunction
Non-finite
clauses
Relatives
Year 8 Boys
Year 8 Girls
Year 9 Boys
Year 9 Girls
Total
121
234
461
352
1168
70
96
191
153
510
28
49
54
49
180
13 (11%)
52 (22%)
103 (22%)
66 (19%)
234 (20%)
14 (11.5%)
22 (22%)
36 (8%)
41 (12%)
113 (10%)
4
4
24
21
53
Clauses not accounted for above occurred in simple sentences of which there were 160 or
14% of all clauses, or were co-ordinated in other ways (notably with but and or).
Alternatively, they formed part of poorly punctuated sentences with comma splices. Some
students presented in a number of clauses in unpunctuated waves, for example:
He lost his balance and went tumbling to the ground with his bike on top of him he couldn’t
get up because his leg was throbbing because it got stuck under the bricks he shouted for help
but no one heard him it was getting quite dark and cold now and he thought he would be
there all night so he yelled again and a man came rushing over and helped him and took him
to his house.
Arguably, the above text has 15 clauses. There is evidence of development in the use of
subordinate clauses (two with because and one Ø-that after thought) but also overuse of and.
The effects of the latter, however, would be softened by use of full stops to divide the text into
five sentences rather than one. Greater accuracy in the use of the full stop would have
enhanced a significant amount of the writing (see table 5 and the section on punctuation).
What was also striking from the year groups as a whole was the still relatively small but
emerging number of subordinators and the greater use of relative clauses in Year 9. There
were some non-finite clauses (10% of all clauses). Of these, 31 out of 113 were different
types of nominal to-infinitive clauses after want, would like, decided and other similar verbs.
Girls were more ambitious in writing complex sentences. 22% of their Year 8 clauses
included a subordinating conjunction and 9% of all clauses were non-finite, signs of linguistic
maturity (Perera, 1984; Beard, 2000) but use of relative clauses was limited. Boys wrote
much more in Year 9 and displayed a number of features deemed to be more mature in terms
of writing, for example the appearance of some non-finite clauses (8% of all clauses) and
more varied use of subordinate clauses (22% of all clauses) and relative clauses (5%). For a
list of principal subordinating conjunctions found in the different types of writing analysed
see Appendix 4.
Errors
In Year 8, boys made an error every 16 words, of which 18% were grammatical errors (12 0ut
of 68 errors). By far the largest number of errors fell into the domains of punctuation (30), (14
of which were associated with capital letter misuse but usually not sentence initial) and
spelling (26), accounting for just over 80% of errors.
Table 2: Unrehearsed sentence level errors by Year and Gender
Year-group &
gender
Year 8 Boys
Year 8 Girls
Year 9 Boys
Year 9 Girls
Total
11
8
8
8
NC Level
Mean
4.18
4.25
4.25
4.75
Words
No. of
Errors
68
164
212
145
1060
1451
2658
2231
Grammar
12
19
14
16
Punctu
ation
30
85
103
57
Spelling
NSE
26
56
93
62
3
4
2
10
Despite the punctuation errors, Year 8 boys wrote 70 sentences, 64 of which were correctly
opened and closed (initial capital and full stop).
4
Girls made more errors per word than boys in Year 8, every 9 words, though this was largely
accounted for by two writers with particular needs, who made 104 errors, principally of
spelling (44) and punctuation (49). Taking away these two contributions the average for girls
approached that of boys at 14 words per error.
In Year 8, 11% of girls’ errors could be attributed to grammar but only four of the errors
could be attributed to influence from non-standard English. Again, most fell into the
categories of spelling (56) and punctuation (85).
Year 9 boys made 212 errors in 2658 words, but only 14 were grammatical. Punctuation and
spelling accounted for most of their errors, which occurred at the rate of 1 to every 12 words.
Grammar and non-standard English intrusions accounted for very few.
Girls fared much better in the year 9 group making one error per 15 words. The higher
number of NSE intrusions is largely accounted for by the use of colloquial adjectives such as
‘rank’ ‘slaggy’ ‘well-excited’ and ‘scabby’ which featured in the writing of two girls only.
There were signs of increasing maturity. 19% of clauses were subordinate, while almost 12%
were non-finite, the latter being higher than the boys’ 5% at this stage (see Table 1).
Error Types
In all the unrehearsed writing (7424 words), 600 errors were identified (an error every 12.4
words) but only 61 could be attributed to grammar. 48 errors related to difficulties with the
apostrophe. Only 10% of errors were strictly attributable to difficulties with grammar and six
writers had no grammatical errors at all, not even slips or word omissions. A full list is
provided at Appendix 2.
Table 3: Unrehearsed Writing Years 8 and 9: summary of errors
Total
errors
Grammar
Punctuation
Apostrophe
Capitals
Spelling
Homophones
600
61
280
48
65
211
26
Other: e.g.
colloquialisms (16),
cohesion, odd words
48
In line with Williamson and Hardman’s (1997a and 1997b) research, we found very little
intrusion from non-standard English forms. The colloquial was stood, had fell and omission
of preposition in out his arm occurred and are probably instances of transfer from local dialect
use. There were a number of colloquialisms but the grammar was not incorrect (use of
shortened forms such as cause, cos and some inappropriate adjectives used by young people
(rank, scabby and so on). Use of tenses was generally appropriate and accurate. Other errors
(for example the omission of verbs) could be ascribed to performance slips associated with
first drafting e.g. the omission of words such as parts of verb chains which could be improved
through careful editing, as in: …he could back to his house …
Perhaps surprisingly, 12 errors occurred with determiners, either through omission or by
failure to use ‘an’. It is perhaps arguable that some of these errors could be viewed as
typographical slips rather than grammatical.
Williamson and Hardman (1997a: 5), reporting on the work of twenty-three Year 11 writers,
found an error incidence rate of 13.7 words per error and 8.9 words per error in the writing of
Year 6 learners. Spelling, punctuation and other orthographic features, in which they included
apostrophes, accounted for 76.3% of their sample’s errors. The Year 8 and 9 students in our
study averaged 12.4 words per error in unrehearsed writing and 24 words per error in their
course work. If capitals, punctuation and apostrophe errors are aggregated they account for
5
46% of the current sample’s difficulties. Spelling and punctuation combined account for 82%
of all errors (including misuse of omissive and possessive apostrophes).
Distribution of errors
Errors were not evenly distributed or confined to students performing at lower National
Curriculum levels. This distribution suggests that attention to some of these issues would
benefit a wide range of learners. For example, one Year 9 level 6 writer made seven errors
with possessive apostrophes, another working at levels 3/4 regularly used ‘ent’ in place of the
omissive apostrophe e.g. he couldent. An intrusive apostrophe (e.g. When he come’s round)
was a feature of one girl’s writing, although her writing was otherwise judged to indicate a
level 5/6 standard.
Although error occurrence was randomly spread, looking at who was affected by which errors
gives a slightly different view of inaccuracy. For example, while grammar errors were
relatively infrequent they were widely scattered but they were not as frequent as spelling and
punctuation mistakes which seemed to affect the whole population.
Table 4: Error Spread in Years 8 and 9 (n. 35)
Error
Grammar
Apostrophe
Spelling
Punctuation
Capitals
Numbers of students affected
27 (13 with one error only)
18
35
28
17
No of students not affected
8
17
2
7
18
Three students managed to avoid both punctuation and capital letter errors, writing 317 words
between them. One student who wrote 44 words managed to avoid grammar and apostrophe
errors, as did another Year 8 student writing 75 words. One Year 9 boy wrote 367 words
without errors in grammar and apostrophe use but had fourteen errors in both spelling and
punctuation.
Punctuation
There were 400 correctly demarcated sentences with clear full stops (out of a possible 510).
Numbers in brackets in table 5 indicate the number of students affected.
Table 5: Punctuation in Years 8 and 9
Appropriate full stops
Omission of full stop
Comma splice
Intrusive full stops
Omission of comma
Omission of non-sentence initial capitals (e.g. proper
nouns, I, or inappropriate capitals as in daft as a Bat
Year 8
132
21 (7 students)
16 (5)
3
27 (5)
33
Year 9
268
44 (8)
35 (10)
6
21 (8)
32
Total
400
65
51
9
48
65
The figures suggest that 22% of sentences are not clearly demarcated by full stops, roughly in
line with QCA reports (2001, 2002) and not dissimilar to the findings of the Technical
Accuracy Project (QCA, 1999a). We found that 22 students made errors with sentence
demarcation: comma splicing, omitting full stops or both (seven students did both). 13
punctuated accurately, without error. Taken overall, these Year 8 and 9 students performed in
6
line with the national pattern of 75% correct sentence demarcation, achieving 78% correct
demarcation in their unrehearsed writing.
The above findings reveal relatively light difficulties with grammar, especially if one sets
aside the number of errors arising from confusion about apostrophe use (40). When analysing
punctuation, principal difficulties for younger writers occurred with the organisation of long
sentences. Perera (1984: 235) talked about children losing their way more often in complex
sentences than in simple sentences. In the present study this was not uncommon in Year 8 but
decreased in Year 9 narrative writing. Nevertheless, a Year 9 boy wrote a very engaging
story but had difficulties with sentence co-ordination and punctuation:
When he went back to his school his friends were amazed. He heard stories going around the
School Saying he was a hero and he decided it should stay that way but he was the only that
knew what had happened it was Alan being clumsy.
Many native speakers of English (and teachers) would accept the first sentence as correct, but
heavy punctuators would perhaps insert a comma. However, QCA (communication following
telephone inquiry) would not penalise non-use of the comma after the subordinate clause in
‘When he went back to his school his friends were amazed’.
Perera (1984: 174) demonstrates how commas need to be used to avoid ambiguity in certain
circumstances, but they are not obligatory in all cases as Grammar for Writing (DfEE, 2000:
104) might lead one to conclude. However, the second sentence (He heard stories going
around …..) in the above example suffers as a result of poor punctuation. By turning the last
two clauses into a sentence (full stop after happened) the text can be improved quite
significantly. This writer’s problems are not brought about by discrete features of grammar
such as agreement, tense inconsistencies or non-standard English forms like malformed
negatives, but by failure to recognise where sentences are best divided.
A further example from a 13-year old (Year 9) boy demonstrates the emergence of features
associated with mature writing (for example, post-modification of the noun phrase, non-finite
clauses and relative clauses) but the demarcation of clauses and sentences remains the
challenge:
The man with the brown coat rushed over to help Alan but he found Alan had been impaled
on a group of sharp stick one of which was sticking through his neck, the man with the brown
coat pulled Alans bike off Alan and tried to slow the bleeding coming from alans neck with his
coat.
Better use of commas, the full stop, the apostrophe and capital letters would significantly
enhance the accuracy of the text.
From the study of unrehearsed writing samples, some general trends could be identified, for
example that:




boys made more punctuation and spelling errors than girls but not significantly so;
greater understanding of how to identify and demarcate the sentence might benefit a
number of writers;
girls appeared to be at higher NC levels (half a grade by Year 9);
more girls used a variety of conjunctions (boys, 59%, girls, 78%), with 41% of boys
relying heavily on ‘and’, (22% of girls).
Course work or homework writing
7
Samples of writing were collected from 11 students across the ability range and subjected to
analysis using the QCA coding frames (QCA, 1999b). As already explained, this type of
writing was considered to be ‘rehearsed’ in some way, i.e. with time for planning.
While content and expression were more developed in course work, course work writing at
mid and low levels exhibited similar mechanical difficulties to those found in unrehearsed
writing, for example:




limited use of conjunctions,
dependence on and, or and but,
difficulties with the co-ordination of sentences (omission of relative pronouns),
punctuation.
In addition, it was found that punctuation and spelling difficulties in Years 8 and 9 occurred
in the writing of Year 10 students (the subject of a separate analysis).
Table 6: Clause Use in Rehearsed Writing Years 8 and 9
Yeargroup &
gender
Total
clauses
Real
sentences
Clearly
punctuated
Y8 Boys
Y8 Girls
Y9 Boys
Y9 Girls
Total
338
298
546
786
1968
182
106
199
289
776
143
76
178
239
636 (82%)
Clauses
coordinated
with ‘and’
36
57
41
63
197
Subordinate
conjunction
Non-finite
clauses
Relatives
69
84
158
264
575
47
38
68
71
224
15
12
43
53
123
Year 8 boys wrote fewer clauses per sentence than girls but this difference did not show
between Year 9 boys and girls.
Table 7: Clause Use in Rehearsed Writing
Writing
Yeargroup &
gender
Y8 Boys
Y8 Girls
Y9 Boys
Y9 Girls
Total
Clause Use in Unrehearsed
Total
clauses
Real
sentences
Clauses per
sentence
Total
clauses
Real
sentences
Clauses per
sentence
338
298
546
786
1968
182
106
199
289
776
1.86
2.81
2.74
2.72
2.54
121
234
461
352
1168
70
96
191
153
510
1.72
2.44
2.41
2.3
2.3
Errors in Course- and home-work
There were 548 identifiable sentence level errors in texts totalling 13134 words, an average of
24 words per error. Spelling errors were fewer in this type of writing, perhaps suggesting that
greater planning time contributed to more accuracy. Grammar accounted for a larger
percentage but still a minority (21%) and again very few errors were attributable to the
influence of non-standard English.
Table 8: Rehearsed writing Years 8 and 9: errors
8
Total
errors
Grammar
Punctuation
Apostrophe
Capitals
Spelling
548
116
208
47
45
116
Other: e.g.
colloquialisms,
cohesion,
odd words
9
Punctuation in rehearsed writing
There were 632 correctly demarcated sentences (81% accuracy, out of a possible 776
identifiable sentences) with clear full stops. Yet, even in this type of writing, omission and
comma splicing were still a challenge for a number of students.
Table 9: Punctuation errors in course work
Appropriate full stops
Omission of full stop
Comma splice
Intrusive full stops
Omission of comma
Omission of non-sentence initial capitals e.g. proper
nouns, I, Inappropriate capitals e.g. as in daft as a Bat
Year 8 (16 extracts)
219
33
38
8
15
16
Year 9 (18 extracts)
417
36
40
2
36
29
Again, the apostrophe was a stumbling block with 36 errors in total.
Grammatical errors
Syntactic errors were similar to those in unrehearsed writing, with 14 slips in relation to
agreement e.g. there was rocks all over the place. A full list of grammatical errors can be
found at Appendix 3. Nineteen of the grammatical errors relate to one particular student’s
difficulty with reported and direct speech and this contributed significantly to the higher
number of grammatical errors found in the rehearsed writing sample. Other errors could be
ascribed to performance slips associated with first drafting e.g. the omission of words such as
parts of verb chains as in: …he could back to his house … all of which could be improved
through careful editing.
Perera (1984: 22) reports that older children make more frequent use of modal auxiliaries,
combinations of auxiliaries and catenative phrases e.g. I have decided to put together all the
general facts. This seemed to be occurring in Year 9 course work and it could be the case that
some of the errors occurred because students were grappling with more complicated syntax
than that expected for the completion of the unrehearsed tasks. For instance, two students in
this school had difficulty with the third conditional (see Appendix 3), for example:






If you had … then it will
If we had more time we should have measured
It would have been better if we had a room with a steady temperature.
If we had more time, we should have took 5 minutes.
It would have been better if we did more samples
Life would have been easier for Joseph Merrick if he was born (2) ….
This problem occurred only eight times in scientific writing (the evaluation section of an
account of an experiment) and in an English homework, but was not a cause for general
concern, rather a sign of the emergence of more ambitious writing. Perera (1984: 229)
suggests that this must be a late development even for assured writers as reported in the
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samples of Burgess et al (1973) which showed similar difficulties for 13/14 year old writers.
Clause length increases as writers mature and older students use more perfect tenses,
progressive forms, more passives and more modals. They use fewer compound sentences and
more complex sentences. Our investigation supported such claims.
Non-standard English in homework and coursework was yet again not a significant factor but
there were occasional colloquialisms:
The main reason for this unjust way of treating these poor children is that there are far too
many in comparison to the amount of workers there are to look after to them. Because there
are too many children, some of them have to be gotten rid of in some way.
In some cases, the difficulties that arose were of a particular nature that would need to be
addressed on a one-to-one basis. A Year 9 boy wrote his prediction and evaluation section in
science as follows:
I think the higher the metal is on the reactivity scale will have the higher peek tempter
because the more reaction the more the atom get unstable the more heat is produced for
example magnesium is the highest metal I am use in the reactivity scale so I think will have
the highest peek tempter then aluminium then zinc and then iron but I do not know about the
aluminium I used was not pure.
‘I think the test I did on reactivity of metals was not all fair for I did not accumulated the
mass/weight if the metal witch can change the out come of the result witch over all makes the
test void.’
Spelling is relatively good, but some of his attempts were subject to phonological influence or
confusion with a homophone e.g. tempter/witch. The content shows evidence of reflection
but sentence co-ordination and punctuation are a challenge for this student (although there are
signs that they are emerging). The impression is of waves of clauses, as a result of full stop
omission.
The analysis of students’ writing revealed that course work writing at mid and low levels
exhibited a similar range of inaccuracies to those found in some of the less successful
unrehearsed writing. These included difficulties such as the co-ordination of long sentences
(sometimes resulting from limited use of relative pronouns) or the omission of full stops
leading to writing in waves of clauses. While there were occasional grammatical errors and a
few intrusions from non-standard English, these were much less frequent than inaccuracies in
punctuation or spelling. In general, difficulties in spelling, punctuation and co-ordination
affected boys slightly more than girls, but not significantly so. In addition, it was found that,
although their frequency had diminished, some of the difficulties encountered in Year 8 work
were found in the writing of those in Years 9 and 10.
Writing-Related Findings from Questionnaires and Interviews
Before concluding, some findings from our other investigations in the school about students’
writing habits provide a context for considering our recommendations. Analysis of students’
questionnaire responses revealed the following:



more girls plan their writing (59%) than boys (38%);
planning decreased with age, from 63% of age group at age 11(not whole year) to 38% at
age 14, but planning levels among boys remained lower in each year;
56% of boys believe most teachers have explained how writing should be done in their
subject and 48% of girls believe this;
10




boys appeared to be more confident, 38% saying that they had difficulty with the writing
of a subject, compared to 57% of girls (was this due to lack of awareness?);
girls took greater care and redraft more than boys when writing up in each year e.g. 84%
to 63% in Year 9, 78% to 63% in Year 8;
boys think they write as well as the girls (are the girls less confident or more realistic?);
72% of boys prefer computer writing, 55% of girls (63% overall).
In individual interviews, students had difficulty recalling how they were taught writing in
different subjects and several claimed that they did not really plan writing. While students
were generally positive about school, there was a lack of awareness or at least vagueness
about:
a) the variety of writing they engage in across the curriculum;
b) planning for writing;
c) how they had been taught writing.
As one teacher respondent claimed, far fewer boys (than girls) planned their writing. To what
extent this is significant could not be determined, but given inaccuracies identified the
following issues might be considered for further research, if we wish to focus on the accuracy
of students’ writing:




teaching of editing strategies (including punctuation, spelling, cohesion, coherence)
students’ use of planning strategies
time given to awareness raising about the different genres occurring in the curriculum
the effectiveness of feedback to students about their writing.
Little hostility was expressed towards writing, but there was limited enthusiasm (and the
greater enthusiasm came from girls). Boys preferred factual writing to imaginative work and
they appeared to read less widely.
Conclusions
The analysis of students’ writing suggests that a number of issues could be addressed across
the curriculum to the benefit of both boys and girls, notably planning and editing strategies
(including focusing on punctuation, spelling, cohesion, coherence). The analysis of errors
yielded little evidence in support of a strong focus on features of grammar, the focus of many
recent curriculum initiatives. The Literacy Progress Unit Sentences begins (DfEE, 2001) with
units on the sentence, capital letters and then commas. However, if we wish to focus on
securing greater accuracy, input on the use of commas and full stops could be justified as
students progress through the levels of KS3, as this might assist a large number of pupils.
Year 7 English 2002/03 Booster lessons (DfES, 2002) focus on paragraph formation (p45),
connectives (throughout), but the focus on punctuation is delayed until lessons 12-14. Our
study suggests that the priority given to grammar should be re-considered.
In this regard, Literacy Across the Curriculum (DfES, 2001) may be a missed opportunity and
the extent to which its focus was determined by what and how children write is not clear. It
was certainly informed by QCA studies of difficulties and errors in students’ writing but to
what extent does it allow for an exploration of the nature of children’s writing so that HOW
students come to write is understood? To what extent do teachers know how punctuation
develops, how spelling is acquired, how and when subordination or the use of non-finite
clauses emerges in the written work of young people?
In the light of our case study, we are unsure whether gloomy reports are justified. Our case
study confirms the findings of previous work like the Technical Accuracy Project (QCA,
1999a) and other studies of young people’s writing (for example, Williamson and Hardman,
11
1997a). We found that there were differences between unrehearsed writing and
homework/coursework, the latter being more accurate possibly because students have more
time to engage in the writing process. Nevertheless, even in the unrehearsed writing, students
wrote 75/80% of their sentences with accuracy; most words were correctly spelt (over 95%);
grammar was generally accurate and non-Standard English intrusions were very infrequent.
Possessive and omissive apostrophes caused difficulty to some students (though not all).
Clearly, there are challenges, in particular punctuation and spelling, but what is needed is not
a heavy emphasis on grammar, but an identification of interventions that can take us a stage
further in addressing the difficulties that writers face in order to write with greater accuracy.
References
Alexander, J. and Currie, A. (1998) ‘I Normally Just Ramble On- Strategies to Improve
Writing at Key Stage 3, English in Education, 32/2: 36-43
Allen, N. (2002) Too Much, Too Young? An Analysis of the Key Stage 3 National Literacy
Strategy in Practice, English in Education, 36/1: 5-15
Allison, P. Beard, R. and Willcocks, J. (2002) Subordination in Children’s Writing, Language
and Education, 16/2: 97-111
Beard, R. (2000) Developing writing 3-13, London : Hodder and Stoughton.
Burgess, C. et al. (1973) Understanding children writing, Harmondsworth: Penguin
DfEE (2000) Grammar for Writing, London: DfEE
DfEE (2001) Literacy Across the Curriculum, London: DfEE
DfEE (2001) Literacy Progress Unit: Sentences, London: DfEE
DfEE (2001) Year 7 Sentence Level Bank, London: DfEE
DfEE/QCA (1999) English: The National Curriculum for England, London: DfEE
DfES, (2002) Year 7 Booster Lessons, English 2002/03, London: DfES
HMI (2000) The teaching of Writing in Primary Schools: Could do better (a discussion paper
by HMI), http://www.ofsted.gov.uk/publications/docs/957.pdf (accessed 10 September 2003)
Nightingale, P. (1988) Understanding processes and problems in student writing, Studies in
Higher Education, 13/3: 263-83
OfSTED (1999), The National Literacy Strategy: An evaluation of the first year of the
National Literacy Strategy, London: OfSTED
OfSTED (2002), The National Literacy Strategy: the first four years 1998-2002, London:
Perera, K. (1984) Children’s writing and reading: analysing classroom language, Oxford:
Basil Blackwell
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) (1999a) Improving Writing at Key Stages 3
and 4, London: QCA
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) (1999b) Technical accuracy in writing in
GCSE English: methodology, London: QCA
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) (2001), Standards at Key Stage 3 English: A
report for headteachers, heads of department, English teachers and assessment co-ordinators
on the 2000 national curriculum assessments for 14-year olds, London: QCA
Qualifications and Curriculum Authority (QCA) (2002), Standards at Key Stage 3 English: A
report for headteachers, heads of department, English teachers and assessment co-ordinators
on the 2001 national curriculum assessments for 14-year olds, London: QCA
Williamson, J. and Hardman, F. (1997a) Those Terrible Marks of the Beast: Non-Standard
Dialect and Children’s Writing, Language and Education, 11/4: 287-298
Williamson, J. and Hardman, F. (1997b) To Purify the dialect of the Tribe: Children’s Use of
Non-Standard Dialect Grammar in Writing, Educational Studies, 23/2: 157-68
12
Appendix 1
Unrehearsed Writing Task Instructions
We would like to collect some examples of your writing to help us to understand how you
respond to school writing tasks. The writing will not be marked but will be analysed to see
how it matches criteria expressed in the National Curriculum. It will not be read by your
teachers. Your teacher will allow you about 20/25 minutes in total and you can write as much
as you have time to write.
Please put your name, age and form at the top of the paper and the number of the task you
choose.
You have a choice of task and you can do one or more of the following.
1.
Read about the following situation and complete the story.
Apart from a man with a brown coat, Alan was the only person on the field that day. The
council lawn mowers had been there that morning so there were lines of dead grass all over
the field. That’s why he rode straight into the brick under the dead grass. He lost his balance
and went tumbling to the ground with his bike on top of him.
……..
2.
Write about your future, beginning:
Ten years from now, I’ll be ……………………………….
3.
Write about your life at the present time, beginning:
The most important thing in my life at the moment is ………………..
Thank you for doing your piece(s) of writing.
13
Appendix 2
Year 8 and 9 grammatical errors in unrehearsed writing
Total number of words: 7424
Errors
Verb Phrase Errors
Number
Examples
The important things in my life is….
My hand grab …
I meet him about three weeks ago
Confusion of will/would
Agreement
5
Tense of main verb
Tense of modal verb
4
3
Non-standard past participle
Omission of verb (slips)
6
8
Infinitive form
Omission of –ing
1
2
Omitted apostrophe
Intrusive apostrophe
Phonological intrusion (homophones)
Prepositional Phrases
Omission
Noun Phrase
Determiner Omission
Determiner a/an
19
2
4
Im not; dont work; thats
He say’s; he come’s round
Would of kicked; guess were; through (throw)
3
Out his arm; because the pain
3
7
Possessive determiner
Possessive apostrophe
Intrusive apostrophes
2
17
11
Number
4
With minimist look; when puppy
A award; a incredibly clean flat; a interior designer;
and friendly school
He leg was checked; in the steps of him
Mums cousin; the bikers ticking; childrens faces
Cutting thing’s; lot’s of holiday’s; tube’s in his
mouth; a mate of one of my mate’s
No ones was there; family of the poor
Total
Had fell; was stood
I training; It used and still has the potential to
become …
..to opened ….
Didn’t seem to be walk; doing what I like best, play
football
101
14
Appendix 3
Grammatical errors in course and home work
Errors
Verb Phrase Errors
Number
Agreement
14
Tense of main verb
5
Tense of modal verb
Conditionals
8
Non-standard past participle or past tense
8
Omission of verb (slips)
Word order:
Omission of –ing
4
1
3
Omitted apostrophe
Intrusive apostrophe
10
4
Phonological intrusion (homophones)
Prepositional Phrases
Omission
4
Examples
There was rocks all over the place.
The numbers of people attending matches has
increased;
A family that have …..
The reason it undermine my prediction;
9 out of 12 children die because they were tied up
Confusion of will/would
If you had … then it will
If we had more time we should have measured
It would have been better if we had a room with a
steady temperature.
If we had more time, we should have took 5 minutes.
It would have been better if we did more samples
Life would have been easier for Joseph Merrick if he
was born (2) ….
We should have took; I could of weight it;
When Colm first seen the duck (2); they lead (led) x 2;
destructed; did not asked;
It easy to grow;
All she can is do not think ….
I am use
Its (3) for it’s; don’t;
The writer make’s the reader; his wife see’s; she say’s;
Lizzey’s awoke
I could of (4)
2
Out the window; teams are centred large northern
cities
Noun Phrase
Determiner Omission
2
Determiner a/an
Intrusive pronouns
1
2
Pronominal reference
4
Possessive determiner
Possessive apostrophe
3
16
Intrusive apostrophes
6
Omission
1
Negative
1
Number
5
A reason could be cost of tickets.
This is enclave.
And little town like Glossop
Children who are near to dying they are put in there
and left to die
When arrests dropped from …… a year later, it rose…;
They were all unhappy that he could not help him
(reference unclear);
The emergents …it …
Says my wife (his) x 5 (see direct speech)
Its (counted below)
Worlds heroin trade; the egg was the wild ducks;
fortune-tellers hut, Colms claims
Parent’s wouldn’t …; Communist’s came to power;
it’s contents (3); a few month’s
More water in the test-tube than in the previous …
The doctor said was lucky
A family that have no home, anything to sell or any
money.
Every thirty second; many tall office apartment…
Amount of people (2)
Reported and direct Speech
Total
19 (one
student)
123
15
He was asked did he commit …
Her response was yes I left at about ….
…says my wife ….
That/zero
that
Because
When
If
So/so that
As
What
D Speech
How
Until
As …. As
e.g.much,
Where
While
Why
Although
As though/if
After
More than
Before
Like
Even
if/though
The more
..the more
Unless
As soon as
Who
Such as
How
much/far
Which
Whether (if)
In case
In order to
By + -ing
Instead of
Whilst –ing
Appendix 4
Use of subordinating conjunctions Years 8 and 9
RE course or English work Science work
Geography
homework
4330
2867
work
693
5199
7
93
25
34
Unrehearsed
writing
7424
34
Total
20513
193
3
1
1
1
0
3
4
1
0
1
14
32
16
12
15
13
10
5
4
2
10
5
10
12
5
0
0
2
2
3
37
16
8
19
9
4
0
1
4
0
24
28
18
7
16
18
15
6
2
7
88
82
53
51
45
38
29
15
12
12
0
3
2
0
0
0
2
0
0
1
8
3
3
1
4
3
0
0
2
0
0
1
2
0
0
0
1
0
1
2
2
0
0
3
0
1
2
1
0
0
1
2
1
5
3
2
0
3
1
1
11
9
8
8
7
6
5
4
4
4
0
0
2
1
0
3
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
2
1
1
1
0
0
0
1
1
1
0
1
1
0
1
0
0
1
2
2
2
2
2
0
0
1
1
1
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
0
1
1
1
6
1
0
0
11
6
1
0
21
1
1
1
14
3
0
0
12
0
0
0
64
11
2
1
Year 8
Year 9
Total
Rehearsed writing
13
48
61
Year 8
Year 9
Subordinators
218
591
Sentence Initial Sub-ordinators
With comma
Unrehearsed
3
11
17
26
20
37
Initial position
24 (11%)
74 (12.5%)
16
With comma
4 (17%)
28 (38%)
With comma
1
7
8