A case for the teaching of writing through direct instruction
“Writing is the hardest thing we ask students to do.” (Hochman & Wexler, The Writing Revolution, 2017, p.2)
I really like teaching English. For the last two years, I’ve been lucky enough to concentrate my practice more on English teaching, with a colleague taking responsibility for teaching maths in both Years 5 and 6. And specifically, although I genuinely enjoy teaching comprehension (weird and controversial, I know), I especially like teaching writing. Nothing gives me greater vicarious pleasure in this job than reading pupils’ writing after the lesson.
However, it wasn’t always this way. In the beginning, it was awful. As Judith C. Hochman (the progenitor of The Hochman Technique, which evolved into The Writing Revolution) freely admits, there comes a point in many teachers’ careers when the realisation that saying “make it better” or “add more details” simply isn’t enough.
I have an admission to make. For at least the first two years as a teacher, I used to do this. I’d read pupils’ stories in which they moved the (dire) plot from A to B. Then I’d tell them to “add more description” — as if that would solve their problems and move them to a (then) Level 4 on the APP grid. Level 4 used to be the target grade for pupils in Year 6 in England; the current ‘expected standard’ is a much more difficult proposition.
Since those (formative?) years, I’ve attended several training events with Pie Corbett and the Talk for Writing programme, read a lot about pedagogy, and learned the way that a well-planned ‘unit’ of writing (usually based on a novel or other quality text) is built. A recent TeacherTapp survey asked primary teachers which theoretical 10-day intensive CPD course they would find most helpful. Of 1,388 responses, 24% said ‘writing (including grammar and handwriting). Maths received 15% and reading 14%. 15% said they’d prefer to stay in school, so it’s clear that not only is writing the hardest thing we ask of the pupils, but also of the teachers who teach it.
The teaching of early reading has been transformed after much research. Maths teaching has similarly undergone changes. The teaching of writing is less well served with effective research-based evidence.
Phonics instruction has transformed the teaching of reading in schools. But what of writing? It’s universally acknowledged as the harder ‘skill’, but the way in which we teach it in schools is probably the most varied. When writing levels (teacher-assessed) came above the results for reading SATs in recent years, especially the ‘year zero’ of 2016, many an observer raised an eyebrow at how writing could possibly outstrip reading performance. (The answer, of course, is that writing was teacher-assessed against the then-new interim teacher assessment framework and only 25% of schools received moderation visits.)
During many training routes into teaching, learning how to teach writing might not be a priority. Trainees and early career teachers have to ‘pick it up’ through being in the classroom. And the general approach to a writing unit — although reasonably similar whichever programme or scheme you look at, from the National Literacy Strategy to today — consists of progression from and studying a model text, practising some aspects of its style or content and moving toward writing independently. I dug out a few old documents that show this:
Incidentally, the Developing Early Writing and Grammar for Writing provided excellent ideas for teachers from EYFS to Year 6 to employ when teaching writing and grammar. It just goes to show how the 2014 national curriculum wasn’t the first to prescribe grammar and punctuation teaching (I despise the pejorative term SPaG) — it’d been there before.
Whichever way you prefer to teach writing — whether it’s something similar to the above models, or the evolving Talk for Writing, or using CLPE book-based units, or something else — the strategies that Hochman details in The Writing Revolution are not incompatible with any of these methods. Some of them, in fact, are extremely simple, and when I talk about them to other teachers, I sometimes think I must sound a little patronising. However, the fact that a quarter of teachers who responded to that TeacherTapp poll suggests that the teaching of writing is the trickiest part of the timetable.
The Writing Revolution isn’t really about teaching grammar; it’s more about the basics of composition. Writing is built out of sentences. Without sentences, there can be no paragraphs and no longer compositions. And it isn’t confined to teaching writing merely in the context of an English lesson. In primary English lessons, chances are that children will spend 50% of the time writing stories or other narratives. The other half will be spent on various forms of nonfiction, with a dash of poetry.
The strategies can be (in fact, should be) employed across the curriculum, wherever the written word is required to show pupils’ thinking about a topic. One of the times I punched the air when reading the book (there were many) is when the principles of the programme are set out. In particular numbers 4 and 5: that the content of learning should be rigorous and that this should be reflected in pupils’ writing; and that grammar is best taught in this content context, rather than the kind of unconnected grammar activities that mimic the format of the KS2 grammar, punctuation and spelling test.
The Writing Revolution 6 principles
- Pupils need explicit instruction in writing, beginning in early primary.
- Sentences are the building blocks of all writing.
- When embedded in the content of the curriculum, writing instruction is a powerful teaching tool.
- The content of the curriculum drives the rigour of the writing activities.
- Grammar is best taught in the context of student writing.
- The two most important phases of the writing process are the planning and revising.
Being a KS2 writing moderator for the past few years, I’ve had the privilege to visit many schools and look at Year 6 pupils’ writing. Mostly, this has been an uncontroversial undertaking. However, there have been times when I’ve felt that — judging by the written work presented at moderation — pupils have not been given the chance to express themselves and show their understanding through their writing. Work that is either limited to narrative or restricted to writing about experiences within the pupils’ lives (the glass ceiling outcome when teachers focus only on what might be ‘relevant’ to their classes).
Writing limited narratives or recounts from one’s own experience isn’t enough. Expository writing — that informs and explains — is essential for success in school and in life.
As well as this, the fact than young children are often rushed to write at length (why the need to write whole, complete stories all the time?) while forgetting to sweat the small stuff (and leapfrogging the vital oracy element that must come first) inevitably leads to poor writing. That’s poor quality practice for the children, plus poor quality assessment data for the teacher. The older the children get, the more likely there are to be stubborn mistakes and misconceptions endemic in the writing, particularly given the focus on grammar and punctuation (perhaps over composition, some might say) within the national curriculum. But by sweating the small stuff — the sentences — and working on building sentences up from their constituent parts — words, phrases, clauses and punctuation — children can learn to articulate themselves more confidently, with an understanding of the purpose of grammar they choose to do so.
So that’s part of my rationale for using The Writing Revolution in the classroom. Next, I’ll endeavour to write about how some of the strategies have worked for me and my pupils.
