Extended Writing – Empowering Our Students to do This Successfully

Anisha Ahmed – Lead Practitioner of English and Curriculum Leader

When we ask our students to write for an extended period of time, we can often be met with defeated faces, sullen sighs and the occasional (and sometimes dramatic) head on table. Sometimes, as practitioners, we might not understand why. But, if we consider that when asking our students to ‘write’ we really are expecting them to coordinate multiple different processes simultaneously, it’s no wonder some of our pupils can find this a challenging task.

Writing is, in fact, the hardest thing we ask our students to do (Hochman and Wexler, 2017) but when we get it right we know that we are providing them with the most powerful tool. Extended writing gives our pupils the opportunity to engage in deep concepts, think critically, and express themselves in a sophisticated way. 

For these reasons, it really is important that we help our students master the process of extended writing and understand that it needs to be taught, not tested (Turner, 2021). In this blog, I will be sharing 5 practical strategies that have allowed me to empower my students in their writing tasks.

1. Give them a purpose:

What are they writing and why?

It’s likely that when asking a student these questions their responses might be “I am writing a paragraph”, “I’m writing a 12 marker” or  “because I need to do this for an assessment”. Whilst these answers aren’t technically ‘wrong’ they fail to capture the essence of the multi-structural skills we are asking them to develop and, in turn, can be a little demotivating.  We can help them with this by providing them a purpose that goes far beyond the criteria of an exam question. 

Big Question: 

Provide students a ‘big question’ (stolen from the amazing work of Stuart Pryke and Matt Lynch) which they will later be asked to write about. This allows them to thoughtfully consider a concept, theme or idea and approach their writing task in a more purposeful way. Give this to students at the start of the lesson so that they are already encouraged to think deeply and  are able to develop good ideas as they go; this also means they are less likely to view the written work as an isolated task.

For example: 

“Today we will write a paragraph about Lady Macbeth in Act 5”, becomes, “our Big Question is: What becomes of Lady Macbeth in Act 5?”.

In this example students are already considering and formulating ideas, and understand that a big part of the writing task is an exploration of key themes and concepts. 

2. Planning through Oracy

There are some students who we believe  can ‘verbalise their ideas articulately’ but perhaps struggle to write in the same way. This is not necessarily a bad thing and we should play on these students’ strengths; engaging in oracy tasks can support students’ vocabulary acquisition and overall expression. 

Give students the opportunity to rehearse the content of their writing task by making it an enjoyable discussion. Provide students with oracy specific interventions which allow them to formulate and build on their ideas, in a more formal and sophisticated way, which will later strengthen the quality of their writing. You can find lots of great oracy strategies in the SB Oracy Toolkit!

3. Explicit Writing Instruction: Sentence Level

Students need explicit instruction of writing to be able to confidently pursue writing tasks independently. As teachers, we do this in multiple ways, including: modelling the writing process, providing high quality worked examples and joint construction. We must remember, though, that sentences are the building blocks of writing and ‘The Writing Revolution’, recommended to me by two colleagues, has really helped ‘revolutionise’ my practice of this.

Select one sentence level focus for your students and ensure that they have ample opportunities to practice these sentence level writing tasks before moving on to the next one. Recently, I have been working on ‘because, but, so’, expanded sentences and Janus-faced transitions to ensure my students’ are developing and building on their ideas, in an articulate way.

4. Time and practice 

Too often, we feel the need to rush the time given on writing tasks as we want to make sure we have moved on to the next task. If we want our students to write an ‘extended’ amount, however, and of good quality, we must give them the time. As we see our students 4x a week, in English we have been embedding a 3:1 split in our curriculum in which 1 lesson per week is dedicated to extended writing practice. 

This might not be possible for other subject areas, but it’s important to think about ways in which  writing tasks can be embedded into the content of the curriculum and that we are giving students  sufficient time and scaffold to perfect their skills.

5. Feedback 

Lastly, but most importantly, students need to review their work to understand how to edit and improve their writing. This can, of course, include: self and peer feedback, teacher marking and, in relation to the previous strategy on sentence level instruction, specific zoomed in feedback.

For example, when focussing on asking students to build on their ideas using janus-faced transitions, I asked students to highlight their independent use of this sentence level writing and provided specific feedback on that particular sentence. That way, students can confidently use these sentences as building blocks for a successful piece of extended writing! 

Redefining Relationships and Trust

Carlos Munoz

I have been working on redefining relationship and trust with my students. I chose this aspect of my teaching practice because I wanted to improve my students’ learning experiences and to help them to achieve higher.

Inspired by my reading on Hattie’s Visible Learning (2008), I wanted to make the learning in my lessons more visible. In order to achieve this, I tried, and I am carrying on trying, different actions and strategies to contribute to it, with a focus on the professional relationship that students and I have in lessons.

My targeted groups were from year 9, as I was focused on them for my NPQML school-
based project, but also year the group I teach in year 10.

I revisited four elements of my teaching which could have a positive impact on relationship and trust with the outcome I mentioned at the beginning of my introduction.

These aspects are:
1. Developing a mutual feedback from me to the students and from them to me
2. Communication of fair and clear expectations
3. The “authoritative parenting style”
4. Reducing anxiety in students.

1. Mutual feedback
In my lessons with Year 9 I wanted to elicit information, listen to comments from my
students and then react. I wanted to know what students thought about the lesson
goal(s), contents, methods and questions to be able to plan my next lessons. I knew by
experience that only relying on my impressions, I would run the risk of no longer
reaching my learners.

In many of my lessons during the Spring term I finished with enough time to run the
My Tick-off and Prove it checklist it as a plenary task.

On one hand, the plenary activity contributed to making the learning in that lesson more
visible, as students reflected in a more mindful way on the content and skills learnt in
the session. Also, they had an opportunity to identify achievements and areas to
develop.
On the other hand, it was an exceptional opportunity to get feedback from them. This
practice guided me to prepare my next lessons, addressing those areas that needed to
be revisited, those activities that worked well, and those who did not reach the outcome
wished.

As students wrote their names on the plenary sheets, I had the opportunity to differentiate future lessons and/or personalised homework.

Just in no time.

I collected the plenary sheets at the end of the lesson and just by flicking over them I got a clear picture of what to revisit. As part of my commitment to revitalise teaching in all Spanish year 9 groups in the department, this practice was shared and used in groups taught by other teachers.

Feedback from the learners to the learners.
As giving feedback is something that needs to be learnt it helped my students to
have and share a rubric of what learning meant in a particular lesson or piece of
homework. To make their leanring more effective and visible, I gave to them a list of statements to provide each other meaningful feedback and to avoid telling each other
vague comments such as well done and revise more vocabulary.

I also developed feedback on the following steps or levels of their performance: the
task itself, the process, and the self-regulation. I got these ideas when reading Hattie and Ziezer’s 10 Mindframes for Visible Learning. (2018)

The objective was to create clear and visible feedback that first encouraged self-
confidence and reduced anxiety as there was always an element or stage of success
and encouraged students to aim for a higher attendance of performance. I started to develop in them the following awareness on:

 

 

1) The task

 

• Did they meet the success criteria for success?
• Was the answer right or wrong?
• How could the answer have been expressed in more detail?
• What did the answer lack to make it more complete?

 

2) The process

 

• What strategies did they apply in the learning process?
• What was good about the learning process and what could be improved?
• What were the students’ strengths and weaknesses in their learning?
• What further information did the way students complete the task revealed about the learning process?
• Could students detect the errors in their work?

 

3) The self-regulation

 

• What goals could the students regard as reached?
• What reasons did the students give for having completed a task correctly or incorrectly?
• How did they explain their success?
• How could they self-regulate and monitor their learning process?
• Could they detect their errors and independently amend them?

Here there is an example of an attempt to make this feedback ideas visible to students:
Feedback on the task:

Exploring feedback further gave me new opportunities to improve relationship
and trust with my students. They carried on taking pride in their learning and
achievement.
I improved feedback focused on the task, not on the student. I developed
feedback which was performance-based: task, process and self-regulation levels.
I trialled feedback, showing my learners improvements they made compared to
previous achievements, and feed forward (where to next).

As a checklist, I will carry on:
● being generous with feedback
● helping students at the self-regulation level
● avoiding feedback with empty phrases
● giving feedback from various perspectives and trying to link feedback on the past, present and future of their learning
● including guided learner-to-learner feedback in the lesson and developing
opportunities to give freedom to students to write their own feedback
statements.

2. Teacher expectations
“High expectation teachers are more likely to connect new concepts with prior
knowledge, use scaffolding techniques to support learning, provide more frequent and high-quality feedback, question frequently and have a greater use of open-ended
questioning.” (Hattie and Ziezer, 10 Mind frames for Visible Learning, 2018).

Also, based on my experience, high expectation teachers improve trust and relationship
with their students.
The power of rules and rituals. 
I have created a culture of rituals and rules in my lessons to provide orientation, and inspire confidence and trust as they create a feeling of belonging and community, as well as expression of work ethics. My list of rituals includes:
● The register taken in Spanish with frequent opportunities to challenge
students with short questions and revision of vocabulary
● Detentions conducted in a positive way as presented as a gesture of giving
up my time to support learning
● Achievements and effort are regularly celebrated with achievement points
and postcards sent home
● Homework given with enough time to answer it and reminders announced on
Google Classroom
● Feedback written to help to progress to the desired success criteria of
lessons.

3. The “authoratitive parenting style” (high degree of closeness and high degree of control)
The “authoritative approach” from Hattie’s pedagogical approach to teaching has – in my experience- a great potential for effective learning. This style creates a sense of
fairness and safety to be engaged in learning, with all the related notions of making
errors, seeking help and working positively with others.
I have been more mindful of the language I use in with students developing a positive
and open attitude toward their learning:
● Whenever I have seen them were trying, I showed my appreciation for their
work and achievements.
● I allowed room for humour and cheerfulness in my class and laughed with my
students.
● I have shown fairness, understanding and compassion.

This style is also related to my next point: Reducing Anxiety in the lesson.

4. Reducing anxiety

In addition to the bullet points from the last aspect, I recognised students for their achievement to the effort put into the task and not to their abilities:

Sending out a smile.

As humour can take out the pressure, I made a positive contribution to make learning fun and joyful, especially when challenging.

Adopting the IKEA effect.

It is called that because of the “thousands of pieces” to build up the Ikea Billy bookcase and the value of solving or creating a product. Whenever any of my students put in effort and hard work to complete an assignment showed explicit respect and admiration for their achievement. This practice strengthened our relationship.

Feedback: Written, Verbal and Peer

Emily Watson – Lead Practitioner of PE and Well-Being – @ejwatson89

Feedback can be extremely powerful when delivered effectively; not only for students but teachers too. I am sure you can all reflect upon a piece of feedback that you have received that has been hugely influential, but have you ever stopped to reflect upon why that piece of feedback was so effective?

The purpose of feedback is to allow students to act upon it and make progress, inform teachers future planning and allow students to learn to value the quality of the work that they produce. This feedback is much more effective when it is delivered in a timely fashion. It is important that the students are able to understand the feedback and the purpose of it, before allowing them time to act upon it.

I find a clear success criteria linked to the feedback allows students to strive to close the gap and consolidate the learning. Students appreciate constructive feedback with both strengths and areas for improvement highlighted. This allows students to continue with the positive aspects and develop other areas until they too become strengths, allowing them to see their learning journey. Focusing on the learning, when giving feedback as opposed to a grade encourages students to identify how they can develop and refine their work, rather than comparing their status with others. As a PE teacher I use a lot of verbal feedback. I like to create a dialogue between myself and the students, I encourage them to give me feedback, to show them that we are all forever learning and that we can all always improve. Throughout this blog post I will share tried and tested feedback strategies, focusing on three main areas of feedback: written, verbal and peer – please see the relevant images below:

Written Feedback Strategies:

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Verbal Feedback Strategies:

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com

Peer Feedback Strategies:

Photo by Tim Gouw on Pexels.com

I would like to thank Nick Bentley – @NBentleyTweets – and Kiera McDonnell, for their contributions, ideas and support with this blog post.

Theirs now to reason why: using Exit Tickets to improve pupil reasoning and explanations

Liz Hill – Teacher of Maths

In 2013, reforms to English and Mathematics GCSEs were announced. The aim of the new specification for mathematics GCSEs was to “demand deeper and broader mathematical understanding” whilst also requiring pupils “to apply their knowledge and reasoning to provide clear mathematical arguments.” (Nov 2013 https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/reformed-gcses-in-english-and-mathematics )

When planning lessons, I not only think about teaching how and when to apply specific mathematical skills, but I also want to teach pupils to be able to offer a written explanation to reinforce their understanding, as per the new specification. Whilst I am aware that many pupils are able to articulate the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ verbally when questioned, the process of writing down the ‘why’ is often a challenge. Add to this that the syllabus is now larger and more demanding – how are you supposed to teach content and have pupils provide written mathematical arguments?

Enter the exit ticket!

I cannot take all the credit for the layout of my exit tickets, I commandeered it from MrBartonMaths and have tweaked it to fit with Sarah Bonnell’s marking policy.

The exit ticket is given out 10 to 15 minutes before the end of the lesson after a series of lessons on a topic has been taught. Pupils are to answer the four questions quietly and independently, although I encourage pupils with support workers to have a go at it alone.

From the pupils’ answers, I aim to learn how well the pupils understand the topic we have been studying. Each question is supposed to be more challenging than the last, and each question is diagnostic (a post to be written on this at a later date!) so I get a clear insight in to any misconceptions before even reading the pupils’ explanations.

On the right hand side pupils are meant to offer an explanation. I often tell them to imagine they are explaining to a martian how to work out the answer to the question. For those who aren’t confident and who struggle to write an explanation I ask for clear working out, since this is also a key skill in gaining marks at GCSE.

Since rolling these out in September, I have noticed that the ability of my pupils in articulating ‘why’ when asked has improved infinitely. My pupils are becoming more confident and detailed when sharing their method and thought process for solving a problem. Even more exciting are my pupils’ improvements when providing written explanations. Exit tickets are being answered faster and faster in classes where they do them regularly. Pupils have gained independence when starting their exit tickets – they are quiet, focused and thoughtful.

I have practised the exit tickets most often with my Year 8 class who are set 5 and often lack the confidence needed to allow themselves to progress. In September, some pupils were unable offer any explanation and I made it clear that they just need to circle A, B, C, or D (as I have said already, the diagnostic question lets me assess their understanding straight away). I mark the tickets with excitement and pride as I see the progress of the class. The same pupils who started the year circling only A, B, C, or D, now offer me working-out and sentences of explanation without assistance, prompts or hints whatsoever. When given further time during the feedback sessions, these same pupils are able to reason with my questions  and improve their answers. This will set them in good stead as they hurtle towards KS4 and start being expected to offer mathematical arguments to access the marks in the higher graded questions.

As my groups’ ability and confidence in explaining has improved, I must confess that my feedback on exit tickets has improved too. Each exit ticket is a marked piece of work with a WWW, EBI and clear questions, so pupils can develop their understanding and reasoning to take themselves to the next step. I am currently working with the Exit Ticket template version 2.0. If you think that you could use it for your lessons, and find ways to improve it, please let us know how it goes!

Being an examiner: Is it worth it?

Duncan Bowyer-Lead Practitoner

After a long day at school and sometimes even a longer evening at home marking and prepping, the last thing one may want to do is add to the workload!  Yet every June, there are thousands of teachers who willingly sign up for additional work; tasks that can often take up whole weekends and – in many cases –  the very early hours of the morning before we start our working day! Indeed a colleague of mine once told me that she gets up at 3am and squeezes in ‘just a couple of hours marking’ before arriving at school at 7am.

Who would do this to themselves I hear you ask? An examiner!

For the last five years I have told myself ‘never again’ after sacrificing every second of spare time I have to marking the latest set of GCSEs. Every year when the new contract comes through to once again be an examiner – I always find myself signing it thinking that this year will be different. Dinners, socialising, the gym, seeing loved ones, domestic chores and binging on NetFlix are all put on hold for the marking period. Friends say I became a man possessed – desperate to ensure that I was hitting my targets, passing my standardisations, accurately marking the seed papers, annotating correctly and being within tolerance.  

After a particularly gruelling marking session, I remember sitting staring at one of the last GCSE papers… I was so tired I could not even work out what level to award this student. At this point it was a wake up call – it would be unfair to mark these papers when so exhausted as I would not be accurate and the students do not deserve that; so I closed the laptop lid and fell into a blissful much needed sleep.

Bright eyed and bushy tailed that morning, I snapped open the laptop lid and looked again – I could mark it easily now as I had rested.

So the real question in this blog is – is it worth it? Contrary to the tone of my opening to this topic  I would argue wholeheartedly that yes it is some of the best CPD one can get. Not only does it allow your students and department to benefit from your expertise as an examiner; it also allows you to see some of the most mature and sophisticated responses to texts. It has undoubtedly made me a better teacher and means that I can offer an extra layer of support to my team during mocks. I have also learnt from student responses some very interesting and effective alternatives to structuring literary criticism.

Don’t get me wrong-it is hard work and the money isn’t really worth it. However the support and encouragement that I received from the team leaders and principal examiners really pushed me through the process. So if anyone is thinking about becoming an examiner next year, I would say go for it – but remember these tips that I was given when I first started.

1. Organise your allocation of papers so that you can do 10 – 20 per evening. This makes it much more manageable.
2. Be open, honest and keep in contact with your team leader during the process. They will help make what seems like an impossible task possible.
3. Remember not to mark the papers in a public place or in school (they are very big on that).
4. Have a scheduled night off! Don’t let it take over your life.
5. If you feel you won’t get through your whole allocation, that does not make it a failure! It is more important that the scripts are marked accurately and the boards have contingency plans for any marking that does not get completed. Keep them in the loop as to how you are doing and flag up any issues you may have as soon as possible.
6. Enjoy reading the responses and awarding the marks the kids have worked so hard for!

 

How can effective feedback develop student leadership?

Sam Walsh-English Teacher and Year 7 Progress Leader. 

Follow him on Twitter: @_MrWalsh_

In my first couple of years as a teacher, I always believed that feedback and marking were the same thing. I felt that these terms were used interchangeably and so, when I was spending hours and hours deep marking books in scribbly red pen, I always assumed that this was just part and parcel of being a teacher.

This assertion is incorrect though. Feedback has various facets to it, but, in its vaguest form, can be defined as ‘some action taken by an external agent to provide information regarding some aspect of one’s task’. Because of this, I set about creating a new way to provide feedback in my Year 8 English class, which would:

1) Dramatically increase the attainment and progress of my pupils; and

2) Dramatically decrease the time I spent marking.

I tried various guises to achieve this: verbal communication which students captured via a pro forma they then stuck in their book; a complex system of highlighters and re-written targets but, the way that proved most successful (100% of students improved their work by half a GCSE grade or more) was a combination of teaching instruction and peer assessment.

As the classroom teacher, I empowered students to accurately assess another’s piece of work, through a series of models and broken down success criteria. Following this, students formed their own triad in which to do the same on their own, and others’ work. After this process had taken place – and I dedicated two lessons to this – students then had a range of written and verbal feedback on their work, ready to re-draft for a final time prior to my final assessment. This final assessment was merely summative, as students had already undertaken a lengthy process of active and independent reflection prior to submission.

It was amazing to see the numerical increase in a student’s progress, but also their developing leadership as they were empowered to be a crucial part of the teaching and learning process.

If you would like to read the full dissertation report following this study, it can be found here: goo.gl/bx1Sai. 

Enjoy.