Reflecting on the DfE Writing Framework

This week I have been reading the DfE's document The writing framework, which came out on 8th July this year.  The document provides non-statutory guidance for primary schools, initial teacher training providers, early years providers and secondary teachers who will be building on the learning of their new Key Stage 3 students.  This framework has been published before the arrival of Professor Becky Francis's Curriculum and Assessment Review which is due at some point this autumn.  The authors of the framework acknowledge that it will have to be updated as necessary to align to the revised national curriculum.

When the framework was first published (just before the school summer holidays!) it met with a mixed reception.  The English Association identifies some strengths and some weaknesses, while an article in the TES refers to it as "over-simplified".  Writer Michael Rosen is not keen on it.  Whatever our view, it is useful, especially as a specialist of a subject that is not English, to have it as a summary of how the primary children that I teach will be taught to write in their English lessons and elsewhere in the curriculum.

Therefore I have read the document with a view to establishing the parallels with, links to, and potential implications for the teaching of writing in the primary languages classroom.

Writing by hand

The first section of the framework (page 13) talks about the cognitive benefits of writing as well as the value of writing by hand as opposed to typing:

"Writing helps thinking and learning.  It helps pupils to consider information more deeply than when they are simply reading it; it enhances the learning of the subject matter and helps cement that learning in long-term memory."  

I have written before about the benefits of writing by hand rather than typing during language learning.  In addition to what I said there, the framework says that: "Research suggests a reciprocal relationship exists between creative acts and well-being, and writing is a highly creative process, allowing people to create imaginary words, entertain others and paint with words." (page 13)  Therefore whenever we allow children to be creative with their new language rather than just completing drills, we are potentially contributing to their well-being.

Transcription and fluency

There is a significant focus in the framework on transcription (handwriting and spelling), which is taught via phonics for spelling (in Early Years and Key Stage 1 mainly) and explicit handwriting practice which is taught throughout primary school.  It is emphasised that this should start in Reception (age 4-5).  

Transcription then builds writing fluency.  It says: "Writing fluency refers to how smoothly and quickly a pupil can write down their thoughts in words.  Fluent writers show automaticity in writing words, allowing them to convey their intended meaning."  A child who has to concentrate on their handwriting and spelling will find it difficult to say what they want to say in their writing.  A more fluent writer will free up their working memory to focus on composition.

It is worth noting at this point that while handwriting is taught "regularly, explicitly, precisely and cumulatively" (page 7) in primary school, it does not appear in the national curriculum in secondary school.  Many Year 6 children (age 10-11) have beautiful handwriting, but there are others who would still benefit from some input later on, if only to help to build automaticity.

By the time children arrive in Key Stage 2 and begin their formal language learning, we assume a certain level of handwriting, in other words an ability to physically form the letters.  They will already have practised this aspect of "learning to write", but will not have had any experience of "learning to write" in the new language.

Part of building automaticity in writing a language other than English is building confidence in making the shapes of the characters, shapes and punctuation that English does not have.  The writing systems of the most commonly taught languages in primary schools have quite an array of these:

Before the children do any formal writing in Year 3, we spend some time looking at the accents, the tilde and upside down punctuation.  

First we write them in the air with our finger pencils, narrating what we are writing while doing so.  Secondly the children have the opportunity to explicitly practise these shapes and letters:

I don't think that we can expect these inexperienced learners to (a) notice the accents etc. and (b) replicate them accurately without some explicit practice.

Dictation and spelling

The framework recommends dictation as a way for children to practise their transcription, and I know that this is being used more and more in the primary English classroom.  It suggests asking children to write individual letters or words, or to write a sentence after saying it.  These removes the threat for the less confident writer of having to think of their own words to write.  It says that dictation as part of phonics teaching should begin in Reception, in order to improve spelling (page 41).

In the primary languages classroom dictation could certainly be used in this way and for the same reasons.  Children could practise writing the language-specific accented letters on their mini whiteboard and hold it up for you to see.  Writing words from memory (as specified in the Key Stage 2 national curriculum) would also work.  To practise phonics, children could listen to a L2 word and fill in the missing phoneme/grapheme.  

I don't explicitly practise spelling the vocabulary with the children (due to time constraints more than anything) but I can see how this could work in the initial stages of composition.  Spanish is a transparent language, and therefore spelling is not as much of an issue as it might be when the children are writing in English.  I am almost proud when the children mix up their b's and v's or miss off a silent h, as these are errors that Spanish children make.  The framework does say, however, that spelling difficulties increase the cognitive load (page 40).  So is this something to which we should be dedicating some time, especially for the more opaque languages like French, in order to facilitate more fluent writing later on?  I have written before about how English spelling can interfere with spelling in the new language, and have also blogged about some ideas for practising spelling with Key Stage 2 children.

The framework talks about morphology and etymology as important components of working on spelling (page 43).  Certainly when teaching Spanish I talk about the origins of words a lot (usually links to Latin and therefore to English) although morphology has a somewhat less prominent place in the primary languages classroom, simply because of the much reduced number of words that are being learned.

I have written before about using dictation in the primary languages classroom and compiled a list of ideas for dictation classroom activities.  My Spanish dictation publication is available here.

Talking for writing

The documents begins with a discussion of the importance of talk for writing, something that is already a feature of the national curriculum for English in primary schools.  From Reception, children should be taught to compose orally, in other words to say out loud what they want to write.  "In the early stages of learning to write, sentence-level composition should be practised orally" (page 8).

Talk is used to generate and discuss ideas for the writing.  Oral composition reduces cognitive demand when children do eventually write the sentence or phrase, as they have already had the opportunity to formulate their ideas and vocabulary and grammar choice.  They are able to test out ideas before they commit them to paper (page 49).

However it goes on to say (on page 14) that "Writing is not merely talk written down.  Learning to write involves developing control of language in a way that, increasingly, is different from everyday, conversational speech and must be explicitly taught."  This, I think, is where the teaching of English, the mother tongue for the majority of the children, differs from the teaching of the new language.  The language and structures that we practise orally tend to be the same as the sentences that the children will later write, and I think this continues until way into secondary school languages.  It will be some time before students can confidently speak conversationally, different to the language that they write.

Composition

Articulating and structuring ideas in written form is referred to as composition in the national curriculum.  Composition and transcription are summarised in the framework as "The Simple View of Writing". (page 16)  It says that proficient writing will not be possible without developing these two aspects.

Research has suggested (see page 19) that "planning, composing and rewriting a text is twice as mentally demanding as reading a complex text".  This is something that resonates with writing in the new language.  I think that sometimes, particularly if we are a visiting specialist teacher, we can underestimate just how difficult it can be for some children to produce sentences in the new language.

"An effective writer has to attend to numerous elements simultaneously. This can present an overwhelming challenge for pupils’ working memory, that is, their limited workspace for thinking, learning and remembering. This is particularly the case for novice writers. As they become more skilled with the individual components, they are more able to manage all of them but it can be overwhelming while they are learning. Writing should not be rushed: pupils should concentrate on the quality of their writing rather than producing large amounts of lower-quality text." (page 19)

The framework recommends beginning with sentences which can later be built into paragraphs.  It also recommends using visual prompts such as pictures from a story book and sentence stems.

Talking for writing and modelling responses before written composition takes place are crucial to success in English and also writing in the new language.  As the framework says: "Pupils who are expected to write with minimal preparation are unlikely to succeed." (page 57)  It breaks composition down into four steps:  Drafting, Revising, Editing, Sharing.

Before the first draft of writing in the new language is written, it is crucial that a typical response is modelled for the children, whether this is for a set of phrase or sentence drills or for a longer paragraph.  The framework says "Pupils need to have the whole process demonstrated for them and see 'the struggle, the thinking, the pondering, the messiness of it all - because most struggling writers believe good writers are born, not honed through practice'" (page 64).  

As the first step, the teacher takes the lead while the children observe the 'expert writer'.  This is the modelled writing or 'I do' phase.  The teacher thinks aloud, explaining why they are choosing specific language or structures.  After this comes the shared writing or 'we do' phase where the children build a text with the teacher.  I must admit that I begin with this phase - I don't compose a text myself and talk the children through how I am doing it.  Something to consider for the future I think.  When I build a text with the children, I show them how we can start simple and then embellish with conjunctions, intensifiers and other previously learned words.

You can see in these examples (for Year 4 and Year 6) that we started with basic sentences and then added to them to increase the complexity and the quality.  

The third phase is the independent writing or 'you do' phase, where the children use the two previous examples to create their own piece of writing.  The framework also suggests a fourth phase - guided writing - where the teacher works with a selected group of pupils, helping them to draft their writing while the rest of the class works independently.  I choose to circulate constantly around the class, addressing any misconceptions and answering questions as they arise.  Guided writing is something that I do with certain children but not formally and not usually sitting with them.  Children need frequent and timely feedback on their writing, and I choose to do this by moving around the room.

Writing across the curriculum

Writing skills are incorporated into many other subject areas in the primary timetable, and children are expected to use their English skills to write about what they have learned elsewhere in the curriculum.  The framework says that it is important that "the complexity of the task [in the other subject] matches their stage of development in writing" (page 86).  In other words, if children are writing in geography, the task they are given should enable them to write at the same level as they do in their English work.  This is something that is not possible in languages, the grammar, structure and complexity of which are usually at least a key stage behind the work in English, because of the starting point and the frequency of the lessons.  We can, though, embed many of the writing routines and models described in the framework into our subject.

"The power of writing as a means for thinking and remembering should be embedded throughout the curriculum." (page 86)  We can certainly play our part in this.

Transition

Secondary teachers will need to know how primary children have been taught to write, not only in English but also in their language lessons.  To facilitate a smooth transition, secondary teachers are advised to use some of the same strategies in their lessons.

There are clearly a lot of parallels that can be drawn between primary English pedagogy and methodology and what we do in the primary languages classroom.  I think it will help teachers - non-specialists, class teachers and specialists alike - to reflect on the recommendations of the framework and how they can enhance our teaching of writing in a language other than English.