![]() precise, so that none of its ideas can be challenged structured, because complex ideas need to be controlled to produce an unambiguous statement formal, because informal writing is not always understood in the same way by every reader That means that academic writing must be: So it's important to avoid any ambiguity. Do it every day and try to enjoy itĭoing a shared writing session every day is essential in developing confidence, improving attainment, and perhaps most importantly, promoting the idea that writing is an enjoyable and creative process.What does it mean to write in an academic style? It doesn't mean using lots of long words and complicated sentences! The purpose of academic writing is to communicate complex ideas in a way that makes them least likely to be challenged. Then, when I think the children have got the idea, I will write a sentence with a blank space at the beginning and ask children for contributions. For example, if my focus is using fronted adverbials, I will model this explicitly in my first few sentences. ![]() I’ve never understood the need for a session to be either exclusively modelled (watch me) or exclusively shared (let’s write together). As the year progresses, they will become more confident and will want to write more independently. At first, less confident writers will want to stick closely to the model and this should be encouraged. Children should be able to refer to the draft when creating their own. Stick your shared writing up on the learning wall or hand out copies. You can always publish a final draft later. The result may not look pretty but it is essential for children to see and hear writing as a drafting - and a sometimes messy - process. For tricky spellings, model the appropriate strategy to give the word your best effort, but don’t be afraid to circle words you’re unsure about with the clear intention to check it later with a dictionary (using dictionaries mid-session is a sure way to break the creative flow of writing). Speak your internal writer’s dialogue out loud and make the decisions you are making explicit. Involve the children in reading work back and making improvements, making reference to the day’s success criteria and checking for grammar and punctuation errors. Beginning a session with a drama activity, a mind walk (a guided day dream), a piece of music, a film or an image will help students to come to the shared writing full of ideas. Also don’t be afraid to let children shout out ideas and have someone bank these somewhere in the classroom. Get them to draft key words, phrases or sentences so that they will have plenty to contribute during the shared exercise and will have a bank to use later in their own writing. To promote discussion, seat children in mixed attainment pairs and take regular breaks for them to talk to their partners and generate ideas. In shared writing sessions, have your plan on display and make explicit reference to it throughout the process, making it clear how to use a plan when writing. The students spend a whole lesson crafting a beautiful plan and then leave it in their trays and never refer to it when they actually come to do independent writing. ![]() I now set myself a maximum of 20 minutes in upper key stage 2, 15 minutes in lower KS2 and 10 minutes in KS1. It was torture - for me, the kids and, I daresay, my mentor. I have vivid memories of doing a shared writing session as a trainee that was 45 minutes long. Any teacher reading your shared writing after the session should be able to clearly see what your focus was. A good rule is to have between one and three focuses, with three being the absolute maximum. The more focused it is, the more effective it will be. Have a focusįocus your shared writing session on a particular aspect or aspects of writing. So, here are some of the fundamentals of effective shared writing. The pressure of writing live means few teachers do it daily and even fewer do it during an observation, which means that they rarely receive feedback on how to improve. And yet, teachers often tell me they don’t like doing it. In fact, I’d even go as far as to say that if you’re not teaching shared writing regularly, then you’re probably not teaching writing very well. However, when it comes to shared writing (a process where the teacher models writing, informed by student contributions), I certainly know where I stand. There are very few things in education that I can happily say I’ve made my mind up about.
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