On the Write Track: A Practical Guide to Teaching Writing in Primary Schools

✍ Scribed by James Clements

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2022
• Tongue: English
• Leaves: 316
• Category: Library

✦ Synopsis

On the Write Track puts teachers’ autonomy and their knowledge of what is right for their pupils at the heart of teaching writing. It explores a set of research-based principles, before illustrating these with case studies and examples of classroom practice.

Writing is about communication. Learning to write gives children a voice that others will listen to – a voice they can use to share their ideas, articulate their feelings, amuse and delight their readers and argue for what they believe in.

While every child, every teacher and every classroom are different, approaches to teaching writing can sometimes feel prescriptive, whether they are based on a particular curriculum model, commercial scheme, assessment system or underlying philosophy.

This book provides freedom and choice by introducing a series of ‘tracks’ for writing teaching, including practical approaches to:

• Building a community of writers in the classroom

• Employing a process-led sequence for teaching writing

• Encouraging children to write for pleasure and share their own interests

• Exploring the use of rich and diverse texts as fuel for writing

• Drawing on spoken language and oracy to develop written communication

• Teaching grammar and punctuation to support writing

• Utilising feedback to help children develop their writing voice

• Using drama and play as starting points for writing

Through considering these different tracks and thinking about how to weave them together into a coherent whole, teachers can help every child to make the journey to being a confident, skilled, keen writer.

✦ Table of Contents

Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
On the Write Track: An introduction
SECTION 1 Theory and principles
1 What can we learn from the research around teaching writing?
2 Finding the right track: A personal philosophy for teaching writing
SECTION 2 Assembling tracks: Practical approaches to teaching writing
3 Starting with children’s interests
4 Starting with children’s experiences
5 Starting with imagination
6 Writing and poetry
7 Children’s literature and writing
8 Using and creating film, multimedia and multimodal texts
9 Starting with knowledge
10 Spoken language and writing
11 Drama, play and writing
12 Collaboration: Working and writing together
SECTION 3 Building a process-led sequence for teaching writing
13 Pre-writing: Laying the foundations
14 Planning: Organising and playing with ideas
15 Drafting: Putting words onto the page or screen
16 Revising: Evaluating, editing and polishing
17 Creating outcomes: Producing something to be proud of
SECTION 4 Using language for effect
18 Grammar and syntax for writing
19 Punctuation for clarity and effect
20 Vocabulary for expression
SECTION 5 Putting it into practice
Index