GOOD TO OUTSTANDING
 TEACHING WRITING 
GEOFF BARTON
This session …
1
What we know about writing in English:
•
•
Ofsted 2009
National Strategies
2
Which bits of grammar help in teaching writing?
3
So what might you do next?
English at the Crossroads
June 2009
The English Curriculum
Ofsted says:
•Many older students complained that the Key Stage 3 curriculum had not been
sufficiently challenging or stimulating and that work in Year 7 often repeated what
they had learned in primary school. Too many secondary teachers did not know what
their students had learned at primary school and were not able to build on their
knowledge, skills and understanding.
•Although Year 10 students were normally given an outline of the GCSE course at the
beginning of the year, those in Year 7 were much less clear about the Key Stage 3
programme.
•All the English departments visited had schemes of work for Key Stage 3 but, since
they rarely showed them to the students, students could not see how individual
elements linked together and supported each other. To many students, the Key Stage 3
programme seemed a random sequence of activities, such as the reading of a class
novel, followed by work on persuasive writing, extracts from Shakespeare’s plays and
the study of newspapers.
•In the less effective schools, the Key Stage 3 curriculum placed too little emphasis on
poetry, media, speaking and listening or drama, and did not enable students to make
sufficient progress in these areas.
Writing
Ofsted says:
•Many of the lessons seen during the survey showed there was a clear need to
reinvigorate the teaching of writing. Pupils were not motivated by the writing tasks
they were given and saw no real purpose to them. At key stages 2 and 3, teachers often
asked pupils to write imaginary letters or postcards, an activity that many pupils would
rarely, if ever, do outside school.
•This contrasted starkly with lessons where pupils were given a clear goal, such as
writing for a real audience, preparing for a talk or helping to plan a film clip. Here they
saw the purpose of the task, appreciated the importance of quality and worked with
concentration and enthusiasm.
•
•
•
In too many lessons, teachers spent so long introducing the task, analysing a text
and talking about the writing that too little time was left for the pupils to complete
their own work. Another common weakness was the over-emphasis on technical
matters, such as punctuation or complex sentences, at the expense of helping
pupils to develop and structure their ideas.
Sometimes the teaching focused more on pupils’ knowledge about writing rather
than on developing their skills in writing. Each year, from Key Stage 2 onwards,
pupils were likely to be taught the features of certain types of text, such as
persuasive writing or instructions. Even when they could already easily identify a
text’s specific features, they repeated such work, for example, identifying
rhetorical questions, the passive voice and powerful adjectives.
They would have learned more from being helped and supported to write a variety
of extended texts in the particular form, followed by independent work on a topic
of their choice.
What we know about Writing …
•
The standard of writing has improved in recent years but still lags 20% behind
reading at all key stages (eg around 60% of students get level 4 at KS2 in writing,
compared to 80% in reading).
•
Writing has improved as a result of the National Strategy.
•
S&L has a big role in writing - it allows students to rehearse ideas and structures
and builds confidence.
•
But S&L has lower status because of assessment weightings.
•
In teaching writing we tend to focus too much on end-products rather than process
(eg frames). We should think more about composition - how ideas are found and
framed, how choices are made, how to decide about the medium, how to draft and
edit.
•
We are still stuck with a narrow range of writing forms and need to emphasise
creativity in non-fiction forms.
•
We need to rediscover the excitement of writing.
With thanks to Professor Richard Andrews,
Institute of Education
TEACHING WRITING
How we’ve often (not)
taught writing in the
past …
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TEACHING WRITING
Read this opening from the novel “Bleak House” …
h ghgh ghgh ghght y ftrd rdgxkjahkjh kh sbagzj ws asuwq wq qu iuu h u g 7aijq;m.1xz loli3ji h u h asuwq
wq qu iuu u g 7aijq;m.1xz
loli3ji h u h asuwq wq qu iuu h u g 7aijq;m.1xz loli3ji h u h ghgh ghgh ghght y
ftrd rdgxkjahkjh kh sbagzj ws asuwq wq qu iuu h u g 7aijq;m.1xz loli3ji h u h asuwq wq qu iuu h u g
7aijq;m.1xz loli3ji h u h asuwq wq qu iuu h u g 7aijq;m.1xz loli3ji h u h ghgh ghgh ghght y ftrd rdgxkjahkjh
kh sbagzj ws asuwq wq qu iuu h u g 7aijq;m.1xz loli3ji h u h asuwq wq qu iuu h u g 7aijq;m.1xz loli3ji h u
h asuwq wq qu iuu h u g 7aijq;m.1xz loli3ji h u h ghgh ghgh ghght y ftrd rdgxkjahkjh kh sbagzj ws asuwq
wq qu iuu h u g 7aijq;m.1xz loli3ji h u h asuwq wq qu iuu h u g 7aijq;m.1xz loli3ji h u h asuwq wq qu iuu
h u g 7aijq;m.1xz loli3ji h u h
Now write your own opening of a novel.
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TEACHING WRITING
KS3 tests 2000
Write the opening of a story about a major
emergency.
‘Some people waste a lot of time and energy
attempting difficult challenges, such as flying around
the world in a hot-air balloon. Attempts like these are
pointless, and benefit nobody.’ Write an article for
your local newspaper arguing for or against this
statement.
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TEACHING WRITING
To be truth-full I am for the
argument about wasting time
and money trying to get
around the world in a hot air
balloon, when this time and
money could be spent on
working with medical
difficulty or people who are
homeless.
Level 4
Level 7
I feel it is very important
to face challenges, as
without challenges, the
world would be a very
dull place. I feel that the
earlier challenges
appear in a person’s
life, the better, as there
will undoubtedly be
challenges in the
workplace or in home
life, and so I feel that
the people who have
faced challenges earlier
in life get a head start
over people who have
not.
TEACHING WRITING
You don’t teach writing merely
through:
Explore conventions
•Reading aloud
Demonstrate
DEPENDENCE
•Showing models
•Highlighting genre features
•Correcting first drafts
•Lots of bullet-points after the task
Share composition
Scaffold
Independent writing
Draw out key
learning
INDEPENDENCE
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TEACHING WRITING
Explore
conventions
Demonstrate
Including ‘bad’ models
Show students the
process of writing
Share
composition
Correct/change/improve
Scaffold it
Make it collaborative
Independence
Key learning
Move from small to
larger sections
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WRITING WITH POWER
Narrativebased
writing
TEACHING WRITING
The Set-Up
BUILDING SUSPENSE
Write the opening of a mystery story. Set
it at a funeral in a wintery churchyard.
√
√
√
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TEACHING WRITING
bad
Using models
Before ….
It was a bitterly cold day. Everyone
was in black. The cars were black
too. There were people standing
around in a group waiting for the
coffin. Crows were flying in the
sky. It was really eerie.
TEACHING WRITING
Using models
After ….
The undertaker's men were like crows, stiff and black,
and the cars were black, lined up beside the path that
led to the church; and we, we too were black, as we
stood in our pathetic, awkward group waiting for them
to lift out the coffin and shoulder it, and for the
clergyman to arrange himself; and he was another
black crow in his long cloak.
And then the real crows rose suddenly from the trees
and from the fields, whirled up like scraps of
blackened paper from a bonfire, and circled, caw-cawing above our heads.
Susan Hill
How would YOU start
a biography of a
famous writer?
The Life of Charles Dickens
Chapter 1
CHARLES DICKENS, the most popular novelist of the century, and one of the greatest
humorists that England has produced, was born at Lanport, in Portsea, on Friday, the seventh
of February, 1812.
His father, John Dickens, a clerk in the navy pay-office, was at this time stationed in the
Portsmouth Dockyard. He had made acquaintance with the lady, Elizabeth Barrow, who
became afterwards his wife, through her elder brother, Thomas Barrow, also engaged on the
establishment at Somerset House, and she bore him in all a family of eight children, of whom
two died in infancy. The eldest, Fanny (born 1810), was followed by Charles (entered in the
baptismal register of Portsea as Charles John Huffham, though on the very rare occasions
when he subscribed that name he wrote Huffam); by another son, named Alfred, who died in
childhood; by Letitia (born 1816); by another daughter, Harriet, who died also in childhood;
by Frederick (born 1820); by Alfred Lamert (born 1822); and by Augustus (born 1827).
DICKENS
CHARLES DICKENS was dead. He lay on a narrow green sofa – but there was room
enough for him, so spare had he become – in the dining room of Gad’s Hill Place. He had
died in the house which he had first seen as a small boy and which his father had pointed out
to him as a suitable object of his ambitions; so great was his father’s hold upon his life that,
forty years later, he had bought it. Now he had gone. It was customary to close the blinds
and curtains, thus enshrouding the corpse in darkness before its last journey to the tomb; but
in the dining room of Gad’s Hill the curtains were pulled apart and on this June day the bright
sunshine streamed in, glittering on the large mirrors around the room. The family beside him
knew how he enjoyed the light, how he needed the light; and they understood, too, that none
of the conventional sombreness of the late Victorian period – the year was 1870 – had ever
touched him.
All the lines and wrinkles which marked the passage of his life were new erased in the
stillness of death. He was not old – he died in his fifty-eighth year – but there had been signs
of premature ageing on a visage so marked and worn; he had acquired, it was said, a
“sarcastic look”. But now all that was gone and his daughter, Katey, who watched him as he
lay dead, noticed how there once more emerged upon his face “beauty and pathos”.
SIMPLE
STARTERS
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7 principles
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 Don’t aim for false links with main
lesson content
 No Blue Peter
 Do aim for coherence
across starters
badges
Kick-start learning
 Are great for
grammar
 Emphasise
collaboration &
problem-solving
 Avoid the
temptation to
extend the activity
Synonyms:
Who can think of most words meaning scary,
big, small, nice
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Semantic continuum:
•Think of synonyms for house / toilet /
friend
•Place them in order of formal to informal
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It was really cold. The weather
was awful. I was walking along
the edge of the cliff and I was
really scared.
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The 15 most important bits
of grammatical knowledge
needed by effective teachers
GRAMMAR ESSENTIALS (fiction):
•Sentence variety for effect: simple, compound,
complex
•Multiple narration
•Plot - dialogue - description
•Location of the speech verb
•Direct / indirect speech
•Figurative language
•Descriptive detail
•Point of view
GRAMMAR ESSENTIALS (Non-fiction):
•Topic sentences
•Headlines / subheadings / puns
•Paragraph organisation - main point … illustration …
contrast
•Connectives
•Tense
•Sentence functions: statement, command, question,
exclamation
•Formality / impersonal tones
•Layout features
•Building an argument: generalisation, supporting
points, statistics, facts, quotation
WRITING WITH POWER
Factual
writing:
8 practical
hints
WRITING WITH POWER

Keep it brief. Aim for one side of A4.
If you must write more, provide a
summary box of key points
WRITING WITH POWER

See everything from your readers’
viewpoint: what will help them to absorb
your ideas as efficiently as possible?
Eg bold, boxes, bullet-points, spacing,
sub-headings
WRITING WITH POWER

Don’t overload your sentences. Several
short sentences will do the job better than
an over-long one …
WRITING WITH POWER
2 sentences
Seven of the 33 buildings in St James’s Square, in the heart of
one of the most expensive parts of the West End, display For
Sale or To Let signs. The sight of some of the capital’s most
exclusive business addresses languishing empty – when not
long ago they were snapped up as corporate headquarters –
brings home the impact of the recession as financial controllers
cut costs by letting out spare space vacated by staff who have
been made redundant or exiled to less costly locations.
WRITING WITH POWER
5 sentences
St James’s Square is in the heart of one of the most expensive
parts of the West End. Seven of the 33 buildings in display For
Sale or To Let signs. Some of the capital’s most exclusive
business addresses languish empty, when not long ago they
were snapped up as corporate headquarters. This brings home
the impact of the recession. Financial controllers have cut costs
by letting out spare space vacated by staff who have been made
redundant or exiled to less costly locations.
WRITING WITH POWER
Use short sentences at the start and
end of paragraphs: they give the
reader clarity …

WRITING WITH POWER
Another concern is cost. Whilst there are many
external factors that can affect costs, we do have some
control. We should be putting pressure on our suppliers
to show greater market awareness, and to engage in a
realistic dialogue with us about fair prices. At the
moment there is often confusion about costs. It is
important to change this.
WRITING WITH POWER

Use connectives to signal the direction of
your ideas …
On the other hand
Despite this
However
Also
Although
Therefore
In contrast
In summary
In addition
For example
Similarly
WRITING WITH POWER
Firstly …. Ddghdghgdhghgdhghghdghghdgh ghg hgh
ghgh ghghg hghg hghg hghg hghg hghgh ghgh ghgh
ghghg hgh ghgh ghgh ghg hghgh g
Another strong idea is … hghg hghg hghgh ghgh ghgh
ghghg hgh ghgh ghgh ghg hghgh g
It could also be argued …. hghg hghg hghgh ghgh
ghgh ghghg hgh ghgh ghgh ghg hghgh g
A different approach is … hghg hghg hghgh ghgh
ghgh ghghg hgh ghgh ghgh ghg hghgh g
Finally …. hghg hghg hghgh ghgh ghgh ghghg hgh
ghgh ghgh ghg hghgh g
WRITING WITH POWER
Firstly …. Ddghdghgdhghgdhghghdghghdgh ghg hgh
ghgh ghghg hghg hghg hghg hghg hghgh ghgh ghgh
ghghg hgh ghgh ghgh ghg hghgh g
Another strong idea is … hghg hghg hghgh ghgh ghgh
ghghg hgh ghgh ghgh ghg hghgh g
It could also be argued …. hghg hghg hghgh ghgh
ghgh ghghg hgh ghgh ghgh ghg hghgh g
A different approach is … hghg hghg hghgh ghgh
ghgh ghghg hgh ghgh ghgh ghg hghgh g
Finally …. hghg hghg hghgh ghgh ghgh ghghg hgh
ghgh ghgh ghg hghgh g
WRITING WITH POWER
Be clear about punctuation:





Full stops to signal the end of a sentence
Commas to separate items in a list or create
islands of words
Dashes – in pairs – to create emphasis
Colons: signal something to follow
Semi-colons allow you to link related ideas;
they add balance to a sentence

WRITING WITH POWER
Avoid clichés (ready-made phrases)
• Come on stream (get under way / start)
• A hands-on approach (practical)
• The jury is still out (is not yet decided)
• Meet with (meet)
• Put in place (prepare)
• Take on board (accept)
• User-friendly (easy to use)

WRITING WITH POWER

Avoid unnecessary repetition (tautology):
• Absolute certainty (certainty)
• Added bonus (bonus)
• Added extra (extra)
• Quite distinct (distinct)
• End result (result)
• Past history (history)
• Really excellent (excellent)
• Revert back (return)
WRITING WITH POWER
SUMMARY
TEACHING WRITING
GB’s Final Thoughts
•
See things as a writer, not just a reader
•
Explore texts actively - meddling, rewriting,
editing
•
Demonstrate the writing process yourself
•
Relate everything to effect
•
Talk about grammar where it helps, not as an end
in itself
•
Start with small units of writing … then build up
•
Encourage experimentation, risk-taking, creativity
•
Enjoy!
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