Writing as a learning task

What do you think makes a good writing task for your pupils?  

Read the following good teaching practices and think about your own practice: 

 Pupils will be more engaged with a writing task which has a clear, meaningful purpose.

 A writer always writes for someone, their audience, so pupils should too. This helps make
writing communicative.

 Real-world (authentic) writing tasks have a clear purpose and can often be simulated for the
classroom.

 Using technology (e.g. class websites, blogs, mobile phones, i.e. real-world) can also give
writing meaning and purpose.

 We can use pre-writing tasks to stimulate pupils’ imagination for creative writing (e.g.

visual input, story cards) or to support pupils with language or ideas for writing.

 We can differentiate writing task requirements (e.g. length, accepted level of accuracy, focus

of feedback or personalised topic) in order to make the task more pupil-centred.

 We can focus on the process of writing by helping pupils plan and draft their work, give peer
feedback  and write final drafts.

 Collaborative group and pair writing tasks support pupils learning from and with each other.

 Pupils are expected to write texts which use common features of discourse at the level, e.g.
simple conjunctions, adverbs of sequence, punctuation.

 Pupils should always know what is expected in a task – its purpose, content, length,
language focus, assessment, etc.

Next is a quiz which will test your understanding of the above practices. 

The Writing process
 

There are several Writing skills that pupils need to practise in order to develop their Writing
competency. These skills can be referred to as the Writing process.  The more your pupils practise
Writing skills, the more these skills become embedded and natural for them.  

The list below contains skills for Writing that pupils are expected to practise regularly while doing
classroom Writing tasks: 

 Putting sentences together to form a paragraph

 Drafting the Writing
 Applying cohesion effectively (linking sentences and paragraphs)
 Editing and redrafting the work
 Proofreading and correcting the work
 Organising ideas logically
 Writing legibly
 Using grammar and vocabulary accurately
 Selecting and planning appropriate content
 Using spelling and punctuation accurately

Writing stages
Pupils should follow a few stages when producing a Writing task:

 Composing: planning and drafting writing; thinking about the purpose and audience for a
text.

 Crafting: getting the grammar right; using appropriate vocabulary and sentence structures;
using the features of a text type correctly; linking ideas; organising the text effectively. 

 Improving: reviewing and revising a piece of writing; editing Writing to remove errors;

responding to feedback.

Note that these correspond to the stages in what is known as ‘process Writing’, where pupils plan
their work, then draft it. Lastly, they redraft it following feedback. Do not worry if you use
different names for the Writing stages, e.g. 'improving' could be referred to as 'editing'. The
important thing is that you use stage names that are clear for your pupils, and that ensure your
pupils understand and follow them in every Writing task. 
 Using ‘Wh’ questions (What Where, When, Who, How, Why) to plan and organise ideas
- Composing 

 Using conjunctions (e.g. or, but) to join sentences into a paragraph - Crafting

 Peer editing using an editing code - Improving 

Composing Crafting Improving

Using ‘Wh’ questions (What Using conjunctions (e.g. or, but) Peer editing using an editing
Where,    When, Who, How, Why) to join sentences into a code
to plan and organise ideas paragraph
Revising content based on
Free writing (brainstorming ideas Linking ideas between teacher   and/or peer feedback
freely, e.g. making a mind map) paragraphs using linking words
Responding to self-assessment
(e.g. sequencing words)
Using visuals to focus based on specific criteria
descriptions Using punctuation appropriately
Revising writing in a group
in   sentences
Putting past events in
chronological order Using a dictionary to check
unfamiliar spelling
Dictogloss is a collaborative, multi-skill grammar practice activity. The teacher reads a text
slowly, but naturally, two or three times. The text should be short, simple and focused on the
language point the pupils need to practise. Pupils listen carefully to the teacher and note
different parts of speech each. After listening, pupils work together to rebuild the text. They
all need to contribute, and they will focus on grammar and syntax to produce a written text

together.  Dictogloss: why use one?

Dictogloss: answers
Some possible answers to the questions on the previous page:

Skills: Participants will have used listening (to the trainer and to each other), speaking (to each
other while rebuilding the text), writing (to rewrite the text) and reading (while reviewing the
text as it is being rewritten, and checking the answers).

Language focus: Focus on form when listening for the parts of speech and reconstructing the text
accurately; Meaning when reconstructing the text, but probably NOT while listening.

Task: Using a simple, short text is important because this is quite a challenging activity. The text
should include plenty of examples of the target language (i.e. the grammar being learned at the
moment). As the focus is heavily on form, you could balance this with a follow-up activity
focusing more on meaning, such as to draw a group picture in response to the sentence they have
written, or to answer a gist question.

Differentiation: Note that this can be a challenging activity and group success will depend on
how well each pupil can hear the words. Design the sentence, set up and assign the roles so that
less proficient pupils listen for less frequent and simpler words (e.g. just articles, just adjectives
or just prepositions), and more proficient pupils listen for nouns or verbs, which will probably be
more frequent. Write the text accordingly. Have pupils with the different roles check their
answers together with others with the same role before starting stage 2, so that less proficient
pupils have the ‘correct’ words to contribute. Monitor and re-read the text to groups which are
struggling.