Teaching Writing

A Systematic Approach

Colin Peacock

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2017
• ISBN:
  9781351236324
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

Originally published in 1986. The traditional approach to teaching writing concentrates on mastering the different aspects of writing in the hope that these will eventually unite as a set of integrated skills. More 'progressive' teachers emphasise that writing is a total process which is 'caught' intuitively rather than explicitly taught. Both models are partially unsatisfactory, and consequently a third approach has evolved which seeks to combine the best of both. This book considers this 'systematic' approach, which seeks to retain the emphasis on writing as a total process but identifies within each communicative context the set of sub-skills involved. The author discusses and illustrates the strengths and weaknesses of this approach and the changes in professional thinking and practice that are essential to its successful adoption. He presents an overview of the nature of the writing process, to enable teachers to make clearer and more explicit statements about their objectives in setting classroom writing tasks.

Chapter One

TEACHING WRITING : A CONTEXT FOR CHANGE

For many years now I have thought of myself as a teacher of writing. Although my classroom experience does not include the earliest stages when the basic skills of letter formation and the creation and transcription of simple sentences are first taught and learned in the primary school, over the years I have attempted to help a variety of children, young people and adults to consolidate and develop the skills in writing they have already acquired. Some of the pupils I have taught have been competent or talented writers; many though have been lacking in self-confidence when they approached a writing task and have been self-denigrating about their achievements; a small number have struggled to produce even a single legible sentence.

No one ever fully ‘masters’ the skills involved in writing; there is no identifiable agreed threshold which a beginner writer has to reach in order to be recognised as a skilled practitioner. Improvement and development are realistic goals for even the most able and talented writers. As with reading, we should all of us be learning to write all our lives. But in the course of my experience as a classroom teacher I became increasingly aware of how difficult it appeared to be to help children to improve significantly as writers. And when faced with their problems I offered a variety of different explanations and solutions to myself, to parents, and to colleagues in order to clarify or to help overcome our shared difficulties.

Every day in school we had to deal with children of differing abilities who had reached varied levels of attainment, and it was tempting to explain failure or apparent lack of progress in a child’s writing development in terms of what pupils appeared to lack. They did not possess sufficient intelligence or general ability; they lacked motivation in school and a supportive home background; there was no encouragement to read and write at home and children heard little in the way of elaborated conversation from their parents or peers. None of these explanations at the time seemed adequate, no matter how persuasive or partially true they are. Instead I came to examine more critically my own lack of professional understanding concerning the demands placed on a beginning writer when he or she struggled to make the marks on the page and communicate a message in writing. And I am now more critical too of the ways in which I organised learning in the classroom, how I planned and implemented work, the kinds of help I provided for individual children and how progress was assessed and evaluated.

Many teachers of writing, probably, begin their careers, as I did, with a body of largely untested beliefs and limited professional skills and have in the main to learn as best they can from the successes they achieve in the classroom and the mistakes they make. For my own part, I tried to establish a classroom climate that was relaxed and informal so that pupils could talk to each other and to me with reasonable freedom and could enjoy their work. I believed (as an article of faith) that children become literate and develop their skills in reading and writing by actually engaging in these activities as total experiences, not by mastering isolated skills in handwriting, sentence and paragraph construction, spelling and punctuation, through a programme of decontextualised exercises. Although there were cupboards full of textbooks of varying ages which gave explanations about and practice in writing skills, I would not (I vowed) be reduced to using them. Other classes might be quite content to work their way through them, filling in blanks, copying out sentences and answering questions, but my pupils would learn to write by writing. It was essential, I argued, to encourage pupils to write at length, to make the effort to express what they wanted to say in their own words and in their own way.

The most important classroom role I had to play was, I believed, that of enthusiast and motivator. I had to create situations in the classroom with a variety of stimuli which led via discussion to the pupils writing, and I needed to choose topics that were close to the lives, experiences and interests of the children. As regards the errors that were being made by members of the class when they wrote and the problems that were being experienced, I needed to intervene during and after the process of writing to offer help to individual pupils, to respond to the errors that were being made and to suggest ways of overcoming them.

Fortunately some children experienced few difficulties, if any at all, in communicating their meaning through the medium of the written word. From an early age in their school careers they were on the way to becoming successful writers. For example, supported by classroom discussion and having been given a clear sense of purpose and audience for her task, Lesley (aged 12) produced the following short piece of writing. It is not presented as an outstanding example of children’s imaginative writing, simply a successful piece of classroom work with an assured sense of story and atmosphere.

MOMENT OF FEAR

I was all alone that night, that is, the only person in the house. You know, when you are alone at night everything seems to creak or make some sort of frightening noise. But when someone is with you, you think nothing of it.

Since it was a cold, windy night, I had my windows clamped shut. The wind was howling round the house, and leaves were constantly scraping against the window. I was snuggled down in bed with two hot water bottles, one on either side of me, when I heard a loud creak. Stiffening, I snuggled down even further into the warm blankets. Then I firmly told myself, ‘Don’t be so ridiculous . Of course there is an explanation to that n .. noise. It’s probably just … just … ’ But I could not think any more, for just then came yet another creak. I told myself again ‘Be sensible, be SENSIBLE. It’s nothing. Probably just a window left open somewhere and the door being blown.’ Then it dawned on me. ‘Oh, NO. Not a window left open, please, please don’t let it be a window left open.’

Then there was a slow pad, padding up the stairs. I gasped with fright, very quietly stepped out of bed, tip-toed to my bookcase, and chose four heavy books. Then I tip-toed to my dressing table and grabbed a hair-brush. Now I was armed, but what could I do? Ah, the wardrobe was the answer, I crept over and opened the door. Just as I was climbing in, my bedroom door opened. I always left it open a crack anyway. I sprang back into bed, dropping the books as I went. Then something jumped on top of me. Of course, I had been thoroughly stupid. It was my pet puppy who had been frightened by the wind and had come up to be comforted.

If Lesley and pupils like her are offered a subject that is close to their experience and interests (after all, everyone has been afraid at some time in their lives), are given some kind of stimulus and support before they begin to write, they usually experience no serious difficulties. Lesley, for example, could formulate and express the meanings she wished to communicate. She had read widely for pleasure from an early age and her writing shows an assured sense of story-telling and a confidence in using an informal register of narrative prose. She was also a fluent talker and played a lively part in class discussion. In putting pen to paper she knew what was expected of her, told her story well and experienced no problems with the mechanics of writing or the conventions of spelling and punctuation.

Pupils like Lesley do seem to ‘learn to write by writing’. And it was easy to accept that what was appropriate to her was in principle appropriate to all pupils. As long as the teacher takes care in selecting a topic, presents some kind of stimulus and provides support with classroom discussion and explanation, the interest that is engendered will motivate children to write. Pupils will be carried forward by their own involvement in the task with a desire to communicate a personal message to the reader especially if some kind of final publication or shared reading is involved. Any problems they encounter can be solved incidentally with help from the teacher or their peers in the course of their gradual and increasing mastery of the writing system. Teachers need only to provide encouragement, give their pupils a sense of purpose and audience for their writing and help to sort out individual difficulties as they occur. The writer’s message is all important; other features of the writing system will fall into place in the course of time with practice and growing experience.

These were some of the arguments I put forward and the beliefs I initially held about the teaching of writing. In many ways they worked well for some pupils and I did not feel any sense of challenge or threat in dealing with the mass of less successful children, until, that is, I took over responsibility for 2G. 2G is one class in my teaching experience I think I shall never forget. I was in my first year at a new school after five years’ teaching experience elsewhere and the class in question was the lowest stream of seven groups. It contained a dozen or so children (also aged about twelve years) all of whom had been categorised as remedial; most of them were still experiencing serious problems with reading and writing. There was at that time neither a remedial department in the school nor a specialist remedial teacher. I was to be partly responsible for their work in English.

The children in 2G were clearly not without ability. Ruth took great delight in drawing and colouring illustrations for her written work that were skilful and imaginative; James and Neil were enthusiasts and experts on the subject of lorries and would have happily spent all their time in the classroom drawing immaculate blueprint plans of different kinds of artics; Leonard played in the school rugby team. But most of them seemed at best semi-literate. Their reading and writing problems were quite beyond my professional competence and experience. I approached the situation and their difficulties in the only way I could, using the beliefs, classroom skills and knowledge I already possessed, picking up any advice I could from written or oral sources, and improvising (with varying degrees of success).

My approach was not a total failure. The class and I got on reasonably well together and they seemed to enjoy their year’s work in English. I adopted a topic or thematic approach to their writing and they worked quite hard for short bursts of time at well-tried topics like ‘The Island Story’ and ‘My World’ (a series of pieces about their family, neighbourhood and friends), and the following composite effort followed a trip by coach to the Tower of London.

2G VISIT THE TOWER OF LONDON

On February 27th 2G went to London. The coach arrived at school at nine-thirty. It was a nice journey, the weather was hot but there was a breeze. We went from school to the M1. We left the M1., where cars and lorries had passed us and arrived in London at twelve o’clock.

Juisephine, Geraldine

We parked near the Tower of London and bought our tickets to go inside. Outside the Tower was a guard at his sentry-box. We went inside the Tower and a Beefeater showed us the Bloody Tower. We went inside the Bloody Tower and saw the portcullis mechanism. Then we were told we could go anywhere.

Ruth

So Ruth and I went to see the White Tower and the guns and swords. There was men’s armour, armour for horses and even a suit of armour for an elephant. The place where all these are kept is called the Armoury.

Dianna

I remember best of all the different kinds of guns. There was a Gatling gun. It holds fifty bullets. There was a mortar, a double twelve bore, a single twelve bore and a cannon.

Neil

I got lost and Robin and Michael with me. They went into one place and I went up where the Crown Jewels were to see if Miss Barwick was there. She was not, so I ran down the stairs and looked for Robin and Michael, but I could not find them anywhere. Then I saw Michael’s bobble hat. I ran up the steps and found them all.

Noel

I was lost in the Bloody Tower. Inside it was dark and creepy. In a dungeon there was a stretching machine on which they put the prisoners. There were also some narrow spiral stairs.

Robin

These stairs led up to the Crown Jewels. They were in a big room. There were crowns, bracelets, cups, swords, and many other things, all protected by thick glass.

Michael

We went and ate our dinner down by the river. Stephen and Donald fell off one of the cannons and Mr Peacock said, ‘Are you alright?’ They said ‘Yes’. So we went and sat down and had lunch. Mr Peacock took some funny films of us. He snapped Ruth eating a sandwich. We saw London Bridge open and a ship go through.

Dianna

We went back to the coach and left London at two-thirty. We saw Trafalgar Square, but did not get out of the coach because it started to rain.

Tony

On the way back from London we went on the M.l. We stopped at the M.l. cafe to get some refreshments. I had a choc-ice, a cup of pop and some sweets. We ran around and then went back to the coach. When we reached school, all of us wanted to go back to London Tower.

Malcolm

This account of the trip was edited, with spelling and punctuation corrected and emendations made to grammar and syntax so that the piece could be published in the school magazine. The reality of what the pupils actually wrote in their individual reports was quite different despite the considerable time and trouble that were taken over the task.

It seemed convincing in other contexts to argue that I needed to provide help and support to individual pupils during and after the process of writing, to respond to the errors that were being made and to suggest ways of overcoming them. But in the case of the writing produced by 2G I felt inadequate. I lacked an appropriate vocabulary to describe the pupils’ problems to my own satisfaction, let alone to theirs, and I had little idea about which strategies would help them to overcome their difficulties. I struggled along, therefore, as best I could. At the end of the school year I could not say with any confidence what each pupil had learned; I could not claim any achievement that was the result of my presence in the classroom or the programme of work the class had followed. Although I seemed to be successful to some extent in eventually winning positive attitudes from the class towards their work (‘We’nt got writin’ ‘ave we?’ was a common chorus initially), this was probably because they were usually able to continue to do something that they already did quite well, rather than because they were learning to do something that they had previously been unable to do. They loved to listen to stories read to them rather than read for themselves, they enjoyed colouring elaborate title pages and illustrations for stories, rather than write the stories themselves, and they would have been happy with improvised drama every lesson of the week.

There is no doubt that the approach I adopted with 2G (and other more able classes) in the teaching of writing made considerable demands on the teacher in terms of preparation and the expenditure of nervous energy in the classroom. Often the teacher seems to work a good deal harder than the pupils. The approach may help to make the classroom a happy and stimulating place, but I now recognise that it does not necessarily help children to learn more effectively or overcome their difficulties. I myself as a classroom teacher lacked appropriate knowledge about the nature of the writing process and I lacked also appropriate professional skills which could be used to help children to achieve more as writers and to make progress in their writing development.

It is clear from my more recent work with practising teachers that many of them share the values and beliefs I have outlined, and that they adopt similar approaches to the teaching of writing in the classroom. There is a wealth of common-sense knowledge among teachers that testifies to the failure of traditional classroom approaches - decontextualised exercises, spelling correction...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface and Acknowledments
• 1. TEACHING WRITING: A CONTEXT FOR CHANGE
• 2. WRITING AND THE COMMUNICATION OF MEANING
• 3. THE WRITING PROCESS: AN ANALYSIS
• 4. THE FORMATIVE ASSESSMENT OF WRITING
• 5. PRE-WRITING ACTIVITIES
• 6. HELPING CHILDREN TO IMPROVE AS WRITERS
• 7. SUCCESS IN WRITING: THEORY AND PRACTICE
• 8. CONCLUSION: IMPLICATIONS FOR PROFESSIONAL PRACTICE
• Appendices
• References
• Index