LOa) and b)

With reference to the chosen case study, you will:

• Select and explain the learning and teaching strategies that the
school uses to teach writing
• Use the examples of classroom practice, as exemplified in the
case study, to illustrate the explanation
• Apply theory to this learning and teaching and refer to
established and effective practice and curriculum expectations
for writing in the primary school.

Consider what you think complexity means. Yes, the complexities of

teaching writing. For this LO. think about the orchestration of the
skills that the writer needs to use to write, with a reader in mind. For
example, the components of the two dimensions of the Simple View
of writing.

LOb). This asks you to demonstrate your ability to apply theory to

practice. We have explored the theory that underpins writing in
learning events and the practice you will (analyse) explain and
critique is that which is described in the case study.
For this LO, as a minimum, you will need to access the module
reading list, and sources explored and recommended in learning
events.

LOc)
• This LO refers to your organisation and planning of the
assignment as a whole and how you identify and critique the
teacher’s practice.
• Throughout the assignment, you will demonstrate your ability
to critique the case study, using relevant academic literature,
and this will include suggestions for how the teacher could
improve their practice.

Myhill tells us that Allott et al, 2020

Learning to write is one
of the most challenging
endeavours we offer a p.207
young child (2001, p1)
and it is widely
recognised as being the
most challenging of the
four language modes
(speaking, listening,
reading and writing)

For children, writing is

particularly complex
because it requires
them to learn and
orchestrate a number
of separate processes

Writing down ideas

fluently depends on
effective transcription:
that is, on spelling
quickly and accurately
through knowing the p.207-208 (NC p.5)
relationship between
sounds and letters
(phonics) and
understanding the
morphology (word
structure) and
orthography (spelling
structure) of words.
Effective composition
involves forming,
articulating and
communicating ideas,
and then organising
them coherently for a
reader. This requires
clarity, awareness of
the audience, purpose
and context, and an
increasingly wide
knowledge of
vocabulary and
grammar. Writing also
depends on fluent,
legible and, eventually,
speedy handwriting.

As well as being of high

quality, a mentor text
needs to be one the p.217
children can learn
from. It will usually
have an identifiable
pattern or structure
that can be replicated,
which is crucial for less
experienced writers
who may struggle to
know the overall shape
of their writing and can
literally lose the plot.
Some teachers write
their own or use a
good example from a
child in a previous year
group, and picture
books, short novels and
published texts such as
those in Talk for
Writing Across the
Curriculum (Corbett
and Strong, 2011)
provide useful starting
points.
A model text will also
need to showcase the
way that language is
used to have the
intended impact on the
audience: you want to
be able to answer the
questions: What did
the author want us to
think here? How did
they create this effect?
How has this been
constructed to make us
feel as we do?
Research evidence Bearne and Reedy
suggests that learning 2018
to write is most
effectively achieved
through approaches
that balance
communicative p.276
purpose and technical
skills (Medwell et al.,
1998; Louden et al.,
2005). In teaching
writing, it is important
to keep that balance
and build teaching
skills through a
principled foundation
in order to support
developing writers.

Composition:
(authorial) involves
generating ideas, p.278
planning what to write,
organising the material
for a specific purpose
and audience, choosing
appropriate language
and style, monitoring
the process and
reviewing content,
organisation and
expression to polish
the writing to a
finished piece.
Transcription:
(secretarial) involves
the mechanics of
spelling, punctuation,
handwriting/typing and
layout.

When teachers write

with and for children,
they offer a strong
model of what it is to
be a writer. In talking
through the decisions
they make as they
share writing with the
children, they signal
that writing is a
thoughtful process, and
in asking for ideas, that
it can be a collaborative
process. Most of all, in
openly revising and
redrafting work they
show that writing does
not need to be right
the first time and that
it can be improved and
polished over time.
Being a writing teacher
in the classroom may
involve: demonstrating p.294-adaptive
writing to the whole teaching
class writing alongside considerations
children during
activities scribing for
children’s compositions
(often whole class)
having writing
conversations to
support children
(individual or small
groups) talking about
personal writing
experiences and
strategies.

You may choose to write in Graves 1994

advance of the class and then
display this writing on the
overhead while you talk about p.7
the decisions you made when
you composed it. This is not
nearly as effective as a
spontaneous, on-the-spot
demonstration, but it may help
get you through the door.
Above all, make sure the piece
isa first draft. The whole point
is to show students how to
read the composing process.
Even more effective is the
practice of Shared Writing,
where the children are actively
involved in both choosing the
words and setting them down
on the paper. This has been
shown to be highly effective p.28 Doomby, 2013
(Laycock, 2011) particularly
where the writing is directed at
meeting a purpose recognized
by the children as important.
The teacher’s management of
the processes of composition,
transcription and revision
provides a framework in which
many different aspects of the
process can be experienced
and brought together, leading
to a recognisably accomplished
outcome. Perhaps the most
important feature is the
discussion through which the
text is composed and revised.
This offers the possibility of
developing metalinguistic
awareness, of exploring how
different words arrangements
and punctuation marks
construct different meanings.
This approach can be
particularly constructive for
children in Reception and Year
1, learning to set words down
on paper for the first time,
Latham (2002) has shown that
talk can extend the capacity of
working memory for writing - a p.28
particularly important
consideration where young
novices are concerned. In a
Scottish study, children just
starting school at five wrote
significantly better when they
talked through the writing
process with a twelve-year-old
who had struggled in the early
years of learning to write
(Nixon & Topping, 2001). Talk
between children seems to
facilitate the internalisation of
processes demonstrated by the
teacher and can assist children
in deciding what to say and
how to spell (Davidson, 2007).
The first, and possibly only Wyse, 2018-
in-depth research study journal article
(albeit modest in scale) of
the use of the process
approach in England was
published by Wyse (the
author of this paper) in
1998. The study examined
the research evidence and
debates about the teaching
of writing at the time, in p.
particular the place of the
process approach in the
context of primary
education policy and
practice in England. In-
depth case studies of the
work of three teachers
over the course of a school
year documented the ways
that the process approach
was combined with other
methods of teaching
writing, including more
traditional writing task-
setting. The evidence from
the case studies, combined
with evidence from wider
research, scholarship and
policy documents
suggested that in England,
the combination of the
process approach with
other methods was more
common than the use of
the process approach as
the main approach to
teaching writing, although
evidence to substantiate
this was limited.

Word count:

No content generated by AI technologies has been presented

as my own work.

Reference list:

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Department for Education [DfE] (2008) Talk for writing. The

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Figure 1: UKLA teaching sequence for writing.

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