Teach Reading and Writing Issue 19

Chris Youles is the author of the bestselling books Sentence Models for Creative Writing and Teaching Story Writing in Primary. A classroom teacher with 19 years of experience, he has been an assistant head, English lead, writing moderator and a specialist leader in education. Let’s take the Year 6 writing assessment framework (STA, 2018, p.5) as an example. Here are the strands pupils are assessed against to reach the expected standard. (I’ve removed the spelling and handwriting strands as they should be ongoing throughout a pupil’s time in the settings.) The pupil can: • write effectively for a range of purposes and audiences, selecting language that shows good awareness of the reader (e.g. the use of the first person in a diary; direct address in instructions, and persuasive writing) • in narratives, describe settings, characters and atmosphere • integrate dialogue in narratives to convey character and advance the action • select vocabulary and grammatical structures that reflect what the writing requires, doing this mostly appropriately (e.g. using contracted forms in dialogues in narrative; using passive verbs to affect how information is presented; using modal verbs to suggest degrees of possibility) • use a range of devices to build cohesion (e.g. conjunctions, adverbials of time and place, pronouns, synonyms) within and across paragraphs • use verb tenses consistently and correctly throughout their writing • use the range of punctuation taught at Key Stage 2 mostly correctly (e.g. inverted commas and other punctuation to indicate direct speech) Looking at that list, we can ignore the technical details and pick out just the key phrases: write effectively, awareness of the reader, appropriate vocabulary choices, cohesion, consistent verb tenses and punctuation. Note that cohesion in particular is vital in writing. When a piece loses its cohesion through fragmented sentences, incomplete thoughts, imprecise word choices or poor punctuation, it loses its ability to communicate. Staying in the right lane As a moderator (and I’m sure you, as a teacher) reading an independent piece of writing, I know when it is hitting the expected standard. I then have the easy job of checking through my lists to evidence this. However, bizarre assessment choices are made when we are too tied to our assessment criteria. Countless times, I’ve seen evidence highlighted for subordinate clauses in a pupil’s writing where the sentence was a fragment and grammatically incorrect. I’ve seen numerous semi-colons ticked off, but only a few used correctly. On the flip side, I’ve seen teachers not highlight modal verbs and put a child at a ‘working towards the expected standard’, when a quick read through the pupil’s writing showed me immediately that it contained many modal verbs. One exasperated Year 6 teacher once informed me at a moderation meeting that her whole class would be assessed as the ‘working towards the expected standard’ as they hadn’t a clue about complicated grammatical structures such as coordinating conjunctions. She was relieved when I told her a few ‘and’ sentences would do the job. As teachers, we must read children’s writing and consider what we love about it, what didn’t work, and how each pupil can improve what they have written. T E ACH I NG T E CHN I QUE S “When a pupil produces a piece of writing, all their learning and knowledge is laid before us” First check: Handwriting Can I read it? If it is illegible, this pupil has failed to communicate with me, the reader. Solution: We need to work on the child’s handwriting. Alternatively, if this is due to a physical or medical issue, they can type their story (with the spelling and grammar checking turned off). Second check: Sentence construction Does it make sense? Is the writing one endless run-on sentence with no punctuation? Are the sentences fragments? Is there a lack of cohesion? If so, I will struggle to comprehend it, and it has failed to communicate with me, the reader. Solution: We must teach the pupil how to form grammatically correct sentences. Third check: Interest Does it capture my attention? Is this story enjoyable to read? Is the story interesting? If it isn’t, I’m unlikely to want to keep reading, and it has failed to communicate with me, the reader. Solution: We must teach the pupils how to learn and ‘borrow’ as much as possible from the books they are reading and our model texts. We need to help with various sentence structures, varying their syntax, using figurative language, precise vocabulary choices, etc. MY PARED-BACK ASSESSMENT CHECKLIST www.teachwire.net | 27