Latest Posts
Revising writing and why it matters
If I was to identify one important writing process that is most neglected by pupils, I would pose revising their writing. Why is this vital strategy so commonly neglected? In my ‘Closing the Writing Gap’ book, I propose that ‘revising’ writing is misunderstood and confused with ‘editing’. So, what is
The Struggle with 'Writing Stamina'
After some grim national writing results last year, and lots of conversations with school leaders about their post-Covid teaching and learning priorities, writing is high on many schools’ priority list. Common issues that have been raised to me by school colleagues are wide ranging, from issues with spelling, to extended
The Challenge of Editing Writing
“To write is human, to edit is divine.” Stephen King, ‘On Writing’ ‘I’ve finished’ is a common refrain you hear in the classroom soon after pupils are set a writing task. Pupils’ urge to write can see them rush to pour their ideas onto the page. Alas, for too
What should we do with WAGOLLs?
Few teachers would teach writing in primary or secondary classrooms without using a WAGOLL to model writing for novice pupils. The language of ‘WAGOLL’s – or ‘What A Good One Looks Like’ – is common, but there may be less shared understanding about how to use them most effectively in the
Write Less; Read More
There are few simple solutions in education. If you are being promised one, it is at best a hopeful fib, at worst a deceptive sales-pitch. But there are some helpful principles that can guide our actions. A useful one I think could help improve literacy in primary and secondary schools:
Crafting Great Sentences
We can take the brilliant complexity of sentences for granted. Each sentence written in the classroom is a distillation of a near-infinite number of complex moves. For pupils, practising one sentence brilliantly may be worth a hundred sentences written in haste. Too often, in the classroom, sentences are modelled, but
