Let’s begin with a writing activity, just like those undertaken by pupils daily.
Now, your classroom writing task is to write a single sentence summary, in ten words or less, of this passage about cyclone Amphan in the box below. And, crucially, you must write the summary sentence with your non-writing hand.
How did you do? Just as importantly: how did this task make you feel?
Take a moment to consider the sheer array of knowledge and skill that meant you were able to enact this essential, and perennial, writing activity.
On reflection, you will have noted the physical discomfort of writing with your ‘other’ hand. It reminds us of the hard-won nature of automatic, fluent handwriting. For pupils, these basic writing processes can help or hinder writing goals. Second, to write a short summary, you had to bring to bear an array of reading knowledge and skill. You likely skimmed and scanned the words describing Kolkata, activating lots of essential background knowledge, before considering how to filter the essential information into a few words. Then, understanding intuitively the nature of a clear and complete sentence, you summarised your reading with a rapid distillation into your own words.
When we consider the dizzying array of moves writers make in a matter of moments, we recognise the difficulty faced by so many novice pupils when they are expected to write in the classroom. You may not be functionally illiterate by any measure, but you can still find this task tricky, just as pupils can find writing in the classroom difficult. And so, the subtle, near hidden ‘writing gap’ exists and persists in these countless daily writing tasks for our pupils.
It is no surprise then that the complex act of writing is described as tantamount to a game of chess.3 For most writing tasks in the classroom, a pupil will be thinking about their many ‘moves’: handwriting, word choices, spelling, paragraphing, writing for their audience, activating their prior knowledge, along with considering the purpose and genre of their writing, and more.
Take some time to consider the experience of a sixteen-year-old pupil sitting something like twenty lengthy examinations. Each time they play on a different chess board, in rapid succession, with a different opponent, but in each exam, there is the relentless demand to make their writing moves with speed, skill, and confidence.
Not only is an array of complex moves enacted during all acts of writing, in the typical school day, pupils are expected to undertake many different types of writing. Though many instances of pupils’ writing are in the form of short answers to questions4 – or note-making, for older pupils in particular – any given school day can include a range of writing types and teacher approaches, from a story or an essay to a short exam answer.
Consider the moving target of writing at different phases and key stages. In year 2, a pupil could be expected to write an imagined account of the Great Fire of London, quickly followed by a written record of science experiments on materials burning. Fast forward to year 9, with pupils moving from note-taking in science, to essay writing in history, then onto annotation in art, and finally some narrative writing in English. Each act of writing proves subtly different, with different generic features and stylistic devices, along with often radically different approaches to how that writing is taught, planned, drafted, edited, and revised.
Given we can recognise, with some intuition, how to write strong sentences, stories, and more, without a deep understanding of the process, we can be prone to take the teaching of writing for granted. It can mistakenly be viewed as something to be acquired naturally, just like talk. Though reading, or physics, or algebraic equations, may prove hard for pupils of all ages and stages to master, it has been argued that the ability of our pupils to translate their thoughts into writing may be the hardest skill of all to develop.5
Teachers observe the difficulties faced by pupils who struggle with writing each day. When writing falters, it offers one of the more visible and tangible ways to understand how well our pupils are, or are not, learning. We observe common pitfalls, such as spelling errors, grammatical slips, arguments without evidence, extended writing that lacks organisation, ideas and impact, and much more.
Concerns about the writing development of pupils occur the world over.6 And yet, though a mass of useful practices and research evidence exists, teachers can miss the opportunity to teach pupils critical writing processes, such as planning and revising their writing for success.7
In practical terms, pupils are often not expected to write more complex texts longer than a paragraph.8 As such, the chess match shrinks to shifting some pawns without too much forethought. Shortened writing can go unstructured, so even the conscious crafting and modelling of sentences can prove uncommon. In narrowing writing across the school curriculum to a succession of short answers, often with exams in mind, we miss the countless opportunities offered by writing to enhance our pupils’ understanding of what they read and hear in the classroom.9
The messy, complex, rich and rewarding act of writing can and should be at the heart of best practice in the classroom. The demands of extended academic writing – or ‘school writing’ – can be met over time, and we can close the writing gap, one move at a time.