Teach-Primary-Issue-19.3

Children’s writing will thrive when we take notice of their interests and encourage them to make themselves heard, says Ellen Counter A s teachers, we are usually the gatekeepers of what children write about in school. But how can we ensure that projects are used to help children find their own voice, explore their own ideas and utilise their own knowledge and experiences in their compositions? A good starting point is to acknowledge that sometimes what we might value as a worthwhile experience or writing topic, removes children’s freedom to make their own choices. Given time and the right strategies to develop their own ideas, we can provide children with a fuller, more authentic experience of what it means to be a writer. Get to know their interests To allow children to develop their own voices as writers, we can start by using what we know about their particular interests to support their ideas for writing. Do they love animals, sports, video games or fantastical beasts and creatures? In Donald Graves’ book Writing: Teachers and Children at Work , he suggests teachers write their pupils’ names frommemory and note down the interests and knowledge funds of every child in the class. This will take time, plenty of conversations and space for the children to talk about themselves, and if necessary, dedicated activities and/or surveys to help you get to know them better. Once you have this information, you can prompt and encourage them to write about things they are passionate about. Writing journals A great way of helping young writers find inspiration is by using journals. Separate from their usual exercise books, children can use a writing journal to create lists of ideas for their own compositions. Examples of ideas lists could include: • A spooky story for my friends • A song for me to sing at home in the bathroom • A poem for my nanna • A list of all the things I know about • Instructions for my best friend about how to beat the boss on our favourite computer game Once pupils have their lists of ideas, they can keep coming back and adding to them. Children should be invited to share the writing from their journals daily and be encouraged to write up a final piece at least every half-term. You can use the journals during the day to enable your class to switch into ‘personal writing project’ time – many teachers find the children’s ideas from their journals start to inform their writing decisions within their usual class writing projects, too. Make time for ideas If you find that pupils are getting stuck on how to develop their ideas, why not throw an ‘ideas party’ (a brilliant term coined by Young & Ferguson of the Writing for Pleasure Centre)? Put out flipchart paper at group tables and invite children to draw, write and talk about their ideas. For example, pose a ‘what if..?’ question, e.g. ‘What if you came to school one day and the teachers had all been replaced with friendly aliens?’ Responses to these are ideal for starting an original story. Children can come up with a range of questions themselves, too. For example, What if I woke up tomorrow and everything had turned green? What if a spaceship landed in the playground? What if everyone was called Brian except for me? They can share and build upon each other’s ideas to form the seed of a story idea that they can then take through the process of planning, drafting and eventual publication (see fig. 1 ). Learn the craft To turn all these great ideas into a fantastic story, written in their own voice, pupils can take inspiration from the craft of existing great writers. Most writing schemes expose children to a range of quality literature to showcase what good writers do to engage their readers, but you can also find a series of examples by real authors at tinyurl.com/ tp-WAGOLLs . Rather than mimicking the style of specific authors and/or replicating the content of their work, studying the writer’s craft and its key features can help children implement best practice and develop their own writing style. Children already have their own voice and bucketfuls of their own ideas, and with the right tools and opportunities, we can ensure they are heard. TP I SAY... www.teachwire.net | 67 T E ACH RE AD I NG & WR I T I NG Ellen Counter has 17 years of teaching experience, and is now the primary English teaching and learning adviser at HFL Education @EllenCounter Fig. 1 Planning Editing Idea Generation Publishing Drafting Proof-reading