Like many other English teachers across the country, I have often agonised over how to demystify and break down the ever-complex process of analytical writing. Many teacher training programmes don't include instruction in how to teach writing; the assumption has often been that, if students read enough, they will, by the process of osmosis, learn to become good writers. Experience tells us that this isn't the case.
For several years, our department had used the tried and tested formulaic structures of PEE, PEEL, PEELAC. While these structures provided a useful starting point for many students, they did not offer a strong foundation for great writing, or lead to lasting improvements in students' analysis. For some, they provided a helpful scaffold; for others, they imposed a limiting straitjacket. I found myself dwelling on two challenges that I sought to resolve:
(1) We know from Daisy Christodoulou's important work on assessment* that constantly repeating tasks that look like the summative assessment are unlikely to improve the summative assessment; in the same way that marathon runners cannot prepare for a marathon simply by running a marathon over and over again, or a professional pianist cannot master a sonata by playing it from start to finish multiple times, students cannot simply get better at writing paragraphs and essays by writing paragraphs and essays.
(2) For those who struggle to know where to start in putting pen to paper, a paragraph can be an overwhelming prospect. As a teacher, I'd respond to this challenge with PEEL structures and sentence starters, doing a large part of the work for the students just to get something down on paper. Very little independent thinking was taking place. And we know that, for learning to stick, thinking needs to happen; in the words of Willingham**, 'memory is the residue of thought'.
I began searching for solutions, trying to find work that broke down writing into its component parts and gave examples of practical strategies that could be applied in the classroom. I was delighted when I stumbled across Judith Hochmann and Natalie Wexler’s text, 'The Writing Revolution'. It is no exaggeration to say that this text genuinely has revolutionised the way I approach writing in the English classroom.
25 years of research and several trials in American secondary schools make a compelling case for bringing 'The Writing Revolution' into the classroom. Just one example cited in the book is the implementation of the method in a low performing public school in Staten Island. After 2 years of this method, pass rates on state exams that included essay questions were reported to have risen sharply - in the case of English, from 67% to 89%, as did the graduation rate - from 63% to nearly 80%. Some of the most compelling evidence comes from the examples of student writing themselves. In these examples from our English department, the impact of applying the strategies is clear. Students who previously wrote incoherent sentences are producing stronger analytical paragraphs.
Student A, before TWR at end of Y9:
How Priestley present Sheila by the way he writes like he shows that Sheila is more uper class and has no respect for the lower class also she uses her dad’s place of work for a reason to get away with thing. for example when Eva Smith was putting on a dress and Sheila sore how pretty she was so she got her fired from her dad’s name. At the same time she didn’t know it was the same girl that the inspector was walking about and when she found out she was so sorry and regretful for her actions. also she felt responsibal for it. Sheila said to the inspector “no not really, it was my own fault.”
Student A, after TWR for one year at end of Y10:
At the start of the extract, William Shakespeare presents Lord Capulet as a caring and loving father by saying “she’s the hopeful lady of my earth”. He is saying that Juliet means everything to him. Shakespeare is presenting Lord Capulet like this to make a good impression to Paris. Lord Capulet is also protective over Juliet when he says “a stranger to the world”. In other words, Lord Capulet is saying she is too young.
Student B, before TWR at start of Y8:
In speech to Roman people. Shakespeare has Antony use repetition “friends” because he want them to be his friend and to help kill all the murderers.
Student B, after TWR in spring of same academic year:
In the first stanza, Wordsworth conveys that the daffodils are beautiful by writing ‘a host of golden daffodils’.
Student C, who previously struggled to write anything in assessments, after two years of TWR:
In the beginning of the poem, Smith makes clear that sometimes parents lie to their children. In line 1, Smith demonstrates this by writing ‘life is short, though I keep this from my children’. In other words, Smith is saying that she doesn’t want to scare her children by telling them the truth. Smith’s repetition of this phrase emphasises that she doesn’t want her kids to know about the bad things in life.
In each example, the analytical aspects of the writing have improved. The writing is more structured and more controlled.
The strategies promoted in 'The Writing Revolution' are rooted in four key principles:
1. Students need explicit instruction in writing.
2. Sentences are the building blocks of all writing.
3. The content of what you are teaching drives the rigour of TWR activities. (You cannot write about what you don’t know about.)
4. When embedded in the content of the curriculum, writing instruction is a powerful teaching tool.
The third principle gives us an all-important reminder that writing is not an isolated 'skill'. Students cannot write about what they don't know about. Unit plans and writing lessons must, therefore, simultaneously develop knowledge FOR writing (that is - the knowledge of the content they are writing about) and knowledge OF writing (how to write).
The fourth principle has been particularly powerful when using the methods to improve the writing of students who are already confident writers. The principle that task design should advance thinking is a good one; it has challenged me to think about how I can use the strategies to develop the thinking and writing of our highest prior attaining students. I will explore some of this thinking in future posts.
This series of posts will look at examples of methods from 'The Writing Revolution' and how I have tried applying them in the English classroom. The posts will also include links to writing booklets that can be used and adapted in your own classroom, if you wish! I'd love to hear from other teachers who have tried using TWR in their classrooms. If you are up for sharing anything, please get in touch on Twitter or via the contact page on the blog.
Key Takeaways:
Writing can and should be taught in all subjects.
Students will not learn to write well in our subjects unless we explicitly teach them how.
Sentences are the building blocks of good writing.
Writing tasks that are rooted in subject content will advance students’ thinking.
*Daisy Christodoulou, Making Good Progress, OUP Oxford, 2017
**Daniel T Willingham, Why Don’t Students Like School?, Jossey-Bass, 2021.