Philip Harrison – English
Independent writing skills are useful in any subject, but especially in English. To develop these skills in S1 I decided to use group work strategies to encourage learners to construct their own understanding of a novel. I hoped this would enable them to work with greater independence when it came to writing an essay. They would own their work and rely much less on writing frames and teacher support.
I was confident to encourage their independent writing because I was had read some of their work from P7. These essays demonstrated that they were already capable of extended writing with support. So I devised a series of lessons which would replace teacher support with peer support. They planned their own essays and searched for quotations to support their ideas. Then they wrote up their essays individually with minimal teacher support. The results were good and this will be good preparation for critical writing throughout the junior phase.
By reducing the level of support I developed their responsibility for their own writing. This had many benefits, especially encouraging their own creativity. I was surprised by some of the originality of their ideas. It will also give them the confidence as writers. The process of reflecting on learning and teaching I helped me to identify other skills that they need to develop. For example, I realized they needed to learn how to evaluate the significance of quotations by thinking about which quotations had richer connotations. I am looking forward to developing these in the next piece of critical writing.
Crucial to the whole process were the links I had with primary schools through the cluster raising attainment officer for literacy. Reading their P7 work enabled me to understand their ability from the start of school. To take these links forward, I recently visited Wynchburgh Primary School to come up with more inspiration. I observed learners in P7 starting a unit of work on media studies. This has given me some good ideas to deepen and extend what S1s already know and can do when they arrive at St Margaret’s.
