Talk for Writing
Learning to write is one of the most important things that children do at primary school. Almost all other areas of the curriculum are assessed through writing, so strong writing is one of the keys to academic success. Good writing also gives children a voice to share their ideas with the world.
What is Talk for writing?
At St John’s we follow the teaching framework Talk for writing; this practise was developed by Pie Corbett, supported by Julia Strong. It is powerful because it is based on the principle how children learn. It enables children to imitate the language they need for a particular topic orally, before reading and analysing it, and then writing their own version.
Stages in Talk for writing
There are three stages of talk for writing, children will experience all of these before completing their Big write which is an independent piece of writing.
Stages in Talk for writing
3) Shared writing- The aim of shared writing is to teach children how to structure a particular piece of writing and show them which kinds of literary devices that they can use to make it compelling.
4) Invention-Students move on to the third phase, which is when they apply independently from what has been taught and practised. At St John’s each half term children will publish a piece of their Writing in their Big Write assessment book. As children move up into upper key stage 2 all their big writes will be published in their assessment book.
1) Imitation-Story Mapping, a story or text map is drawn showing the sequence in pictures, words and actionschildren internalise the structure. The purpose of the map is to aid visual memory – so the children can “see” the plot. It is also useful because the process of turning the words into graphic representations aids memory – there is considerable research into the links between drawing ideas and memorisation.
2) Innovation-Story Plan/Boxing up, Involves using the original as a basis for creating something new. The boxed up grid from the original model can be used as a basic planner. The teacher guides children to move away from the model text Teacher reminds children of the toolkit and how to be successful. Children will share ideas of what we could add to our text map (all views are valid) Adding the original text map provides the structure/ skeleton of story visually.