The #WritingForPleasure Centre | Real-World Writers | The Science Of Teaching Primary Writing | How To Teach Writing | #WritingRocks |
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Free writing CPD materials - covering all aspects of writing teaching
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#WritingRocks✍️😍☺️ writingrocks.bsky.social retweeted
Visualising the science of early writing: The emergent writing development model explained
“Emergent writing is not a preparatory stage before ‘real’ writing begins. It is real writing in the sense that matters developmentally.”
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If speech-like writing were the easy/lazy option, it would not be so prized in literature. Yet a great deal of writing we hold up as exceptional is built precisely on the sound of a speaking voice.
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Why effective writing instruction requires a writer-teacher
“Just as it would be difficult to teach children the tuba if you’ve never played one, so it is difficult to teach children to be writers if you never write.”
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They won’t have anything to write about: The dangers of believing children are ‘culturally deprived’
What if the problem isn't children's lack of ideas, but our assumptions about which ideas are worth writing about?
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What makes children want to write?
“Children need a reason to write that matters to them, an audience who will listen, and the knowledge to write well.”
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“Classrooms would be transformed if children wrote what they wanted to write rather than what their teachers told them to.” — Harold Rosen
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Does sentence combining improve children’s writing?
“Sentence combining reliably improves children’s ability to perform well on sentence-combining activities. Evidence that it improves the quality of children’s writing is modest…”
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Does sentence combining improve children’s writing? What the studies actually show
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Teaching writing and play aren't enemies: writing is playing on paper
"Writing is a way for children to claim the world as their own, make their mark, and show that they exist..."
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Just an FYI, a child can meaningfully be a writer before being able to write conventionally.
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#WritingRocks✍️😍☺️ writingrocks.bsky.social retweeted
Recent feedback on Notebook Notions
'Reading this book has completely enriched my students' writer’s notebook journeys in the classroom… Sparking their creativity and confidence on the page has been amazing to watch! Thanks, Alan for your inspiration!'
Made with AI
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Just an FYI, children writing longer or more embedded sentences should not be confused with producing great writing.
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#WritingRocks✍️😍☺️ writingrocks.bsky.social retweeted
Excellent thread on the teaching of grammar, backed with key research from linguistics on Child Language Acquisition and from linguists working in educational spheres.
1/ "Some children don't even know what a noun or a verb is!"
You'll hear this. It’s usually followed by a call for “going back to basics” and more grammar drills. However, it’s all a big muddle. 🧵…
See Dyson:
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#WritingRocks✍️😍☺️ writingrocks.bsky.social retweeted
This is excellent. If anyone wants to know why the SATs Grammar test is an utter waste of time, please read this thread.
1/ "Some children don't even know what a noun or a verb is!"
You'll hear this. It’s usually followed by a call for “going back to basics” and more grammar drills. However, it’s all a big muddle. 🧵…
See Dyson:
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#WritingRocks✍️😍☺️ writingrocks.bsky.social retweeted
As a person who was only explicitly taught what an adverb was at university (while studying English Literature!) I couldn't agree with this thread more. There's a difference between confidently using grammar (in writing and speech) and accurately naming it.
1/ "Some children don't even know what a noun or a verb is!"
You'll hear this. It’s usually followed by a call for “going back to basics” and more grammar drills. However, it’s all a big muddle. 🧵…
See Dyson:
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12/ Starting from deficit ("they don't even know what a noun is") gets children and grammar off on the wrong foot.
Starting from expertise sets things up better: "you use nouns all the time; let's look at how you choose them."
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13/ Every child in your class has been building a grammar since before they could walk. Our job is to help them notice it, name it, and use it with more intention in their writing.
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