The Writing Process
At Shakespeare and More we have a simple set of stages we follow with each piece of writing. Handily, it’s a pretty good match for the new National Curriculum, so if you decide to follow one of our units it’s a double-win!
1. Getting some ideas. Not really a formal stage as such, but it's jolly hard to write anything without an idea first. Ideas can come from anywhere, but teaching children that it is ok to use them is the first step.
For example, ideas for a story might come from the books children have read (on their own or with you); films and TV series (some of the best stories we’ve read have been Dr Who rip-offs written by Y4 boys); computer games; imaginative games they’ve played; places they’ve been and experiences they’ve had: anywhere really. The trick is to teach children that it is fine to ‘steal’ ideas, images, words or phrases and put them together to make something of their own.
The writer Philip Pullman was once giving a talk at The National Theatre and a boy from the audience asked him what his daemon would look like (you need to have read the His Dark Materials trilogy to get this reference; if you haven’t, then you should!) He answered that it would be a magpie, because he was always collecting shiny bits of stories or ideas to use in his writing. If it's ok for the winner of the Booker Prize to do this, then it’s fine for Katie and Shane in 3C to do it too.
2. Planning. A bit boring, we know. And we wouldn’t advocate spending too long planning. But roughing out what want to say and how you might say it is a great trick for children to learn. It also means you can have a bit of quality control early on- you can give a nudge in the right direction to the children who are planning six paragraphs of unadulterated gore followed by ‘and then he woke up and it was just a dream’.
1. Getting some ideas. Not really a formal stage as such, but it's jolly hard to write anything without an idea first. Ideas can come from anywhere, but teaching children that it is ok to use them is the first step.
For example, ideas for a story might come from the books children have read (on their own or with you); films and TV series (some of the best stories we’ve read have been Dr Who rip-offs written by Y4 boys); computer games; imaginative games they’ve played; places they’ve been and experiences they’ve had: anywhere really. The trick is to teach children that it is fine to ‘steal’ ideas, images, words or phrases and put them together to make something of their own.
The writer Philip Pullman was once giving a talk at The National Theatre and a boy from the audience asked him what his daemon would look like (you need to have read the His Dark Materials trilogy to get this reference; if you haven’t, then you should!) He answered that it would be a magpie, because he was always collecting shiny bits of stories or ideas to use in his writing. If it's ok for the winner of the Booker Prize to do this, then it’s fine for Katie and Shane in 3C to do it too.
2. Planning. A bit boring, we know. And we wouldn’t advocate spending too long planning. But roughing out what want to say and how you might say it is a great trick for children to learn. It also means you can have a bit of quality control early on- you can give a nudge in the right direction to the children who are planning six paragraphs of unadulterated gore followed by ‘and then he woke up and it was just a dream’.
3. Writing. Hooray! The main point of it all. We like to stress to children that this is their first draft and there’s a good chance that there’s going to be a second draft, so it is better to take some risks here. We’d rather have ‘elekricfying’ vocabulary than ‘elekricfying- no, that's not right', 'illuctrifying- no, still no good', 'good’ vocabulary. If a child’s not sure whether something works or whether a phrase makes sense, we say ‘put it down and we can sort it out later’. Better that it goes in now and needs a bit of tweaking, than it be gone forever for fear of being wrong. And when the pencil goes down at the end, we’re not even halfway there…
4. Editing. This, as they say, is where the magic happens. This is where it is possible to turn something pretty ropey into something good and something ok into something wonderful.
For editing to work well, children have to be responsible for changing and improving their own work. This can be a nightmare to start with, because most children have decided they’ve finished as soon as they do the last full stop, and the last thing they want to do is pore over something they’ve already written. But hopefully once the difference between their first effort and what they end up with is flagged up, you can win them over.
We like to think of it happening in a few stages and each time the writing gets slowly better. The first step is for children to carefully proofread what they’ve written (aloud if possible), then you can provide ‘first impressions’ feedback (see our assessment and feedback section). Once the children have had a chance to make some changes, you might use some peer assessment or share the work as a class. Then it’s time for more changes and finally you take them in and mark them.
5. Redrafting. Once children have got a copy covered with your praise, corrections, suggestions and targets, they can redraft it so it is as close to perfect as they can get it. It should only need a quick bit of feedback to say ‘well done and how about next time…’ and that’s another piece of writing completed and a group of children a step closer to being competent writers. Hooray!
4. Editing. This, as they say, is where the magic happens. This is where it is possible to turn something pretty ropey into something good and something ok into something wonderful.
For editing to work well, children have to be responsible for changing and improving their own work. This can be a nightmare to start with, because most children have decided they’ve finished as soon as they do the last full stop, and the last thing they want to do is pore over something they’ve already written. But hopefully once the difference between their first effort and what they end up with is flagged up, you can win them over.
We like to think of it happening in a few stages and each time the writing gets slowly better. The first step is for children to carefully proofread what they’ve written (aloud if possible), then you can provide ‘first impressions’ feedback (see our assessment and feedback section). Once the children have had a chance to make some changes, you might use some peer assessment or share the work as a class. Then it’s time for more changes and finally you take them in and mark them.
5. Redrafting. Once children have got a copy covered with your praise, corrections, suggestions and targets, they can redraft it so it is as close to perfect as they can get it. It should only need a quick bit of feedback to say ‘well done and how about next time…’ and that’s another piece of writing completed and a group of children a step closer to being competent writers. Hooray!
