Creative writing in the classroom: five top tips for teachers

English teacher, Alan Gillespie, shares his advice and resources on how to teach creative writing.

1. The rules of writing

I always tell students that there are no set rules for writing and they can write whatever they like. I don't subscribe to the notion that all good stories must have, for example, an attention-grabbing opening, a turning point, a twist at the end and an extended metaphor. Incorporating these into writing doesn't automatically mean a story works, and you will read wonderful writing follows none of these rules. Pupils should be aware of what they are, of course, and why and where they might choose to use them, but it shouldn't be prescriptive.

That said, there are two rules of writing that I encourage them to follow. These rules are: "show, don't tell" and "all adverbs must die". Not the most original rules, perhaps, but if kids can master them their writing becomes much more powerful.

For "show, don't tell", I display a selection of sentences that tell the reader something and ask the pupils to rewrite them in a way that shows the same information. For example, "the man was angry" could become, "the man clenched his fists and hissed beneath his breath". It's about unpacking the emotions and finding ways to let the reader see the story for themselves.

When teaching "all adverbs must die", I concentrate on the importance of giving the power to the verb. "I ran quickly" becomes "I sprinted". "I shouted loudly" becomes "I screamed". Once pupils realise the potential in this, they quickly kill adverbs and load the power of the action onto the verb.

2. Characterisation

Not the most original method I'll wager, but this is tried and tested. Pupils divide a page in their jotter and give each quarter the headings likes, dislikes, motivations and flaws. These need to be explained and discussed; I use Homer Simpson and Edward Cullen as models. What makes these complex and rich characters? What makes them get out of bed every morning? What stops them from achieving their ultimate goals in life? How would they react in various situations?

The Joyful, Illiterate Kindergartners of Finland

Forget the Common Core, Finland’s youngsters are in charge of determining what happens in the classroom.

“The changes to kindergarten make me sick,” a veteran teacher in Arkansas recently admitted to me. “Think about what you did in first grade—that’s what my 5-year-old babies are expected to do.”

The difference between first grade and kindergarten may not seem like much, but what I remember about my first-grade experience in the mid-90s doesn’t match the kindergarten she described in her email: three and a half hours of daily literacy instruction, an hour and a half of daily math instruction, 20 minutes of daily “physical activity time” (officially banned from being called “recess”) and two 56-question standardized tests in literacy and math—on the fourth week of school.

That American friend—who teaches 20 students without an aide—has fought to integrate 30 minutes of “station time” into the literacy block, which includes “blocks, science, magnetic letters, play dough with letter stamps to practice words, books, and storytelling.” But the most controversial area of her classroom isn’t the blocks nor the stamps: Rather, it’s the “house station with dolls and toy food”—items her district tried to remove last year. The implication was clear: There’s no time for play in kindergarten anymore.

A working paper, “Is Kindergarten the New First Grade?,” confirms what many experts have suspected for years: The American kindergarten experience has become much more academic—and at the expense of play. The late psychologist, Bruno Bettelheim, even raised the concern in an article for The Atlantic in 1987.

Researchers at the University of Virginia, led by the education-policy researcher Daphna Bassok, analyzed survey responses from American kindergarten teachers between 1998 and 2010. “Almost every dimension that we examined,” noted Bassok, “had major shifts over this period towards a heightened focus on academics, and particularly a heightened focus on literacy, and within literacy, a focus on more advanced skills than what had been taught before.”

Bedtime story is key to literacy, says children's writer Cottrell Boyce

As a new literacy drive is launched, authors including David Walliams and Michael Rosen warn of threat to storytelling from screens and busy lives.

The childhood tradition of a bedtime story is in serious peril, as experts warn that parents are not making the time to read to their children at the end of the working day and stop reading to them at too young an age.

“Parents lead very, very busy lives,” said Diana Gerald, chief executive of the Book Trust, which encourages children and families to enjoy books and develop their reading skills. “We live in a world where parents are juggling work and home life. Lots of parents are working shifts and there’s a lot of pressure on families. People are increasing their hours.”

A recent survey, by YouGov for the children’s publisher Scholastic, revealed last week that many parents stop reading to their children when they become independent readers, even if the child isn’t ready to lose their bedtime story. The study found that 83% of children enjoyed being read aloud to, with 68% describing it as a special time with their parents. (“It felt so warm, so spirit-rising,” as one 11-year-old boy put it.)

One in five of the parents surveyed stopped reading aloud to their children before the age of nine, and almost a third of children aged six to 11 whose parents had stopped reading aloud to them wanted them to carry on.

Frank Cottrell Boyce, who won the 2004 Carnegie medal for his first children’s book, Millions, was dismayed by the findings. “The joy of a bedtime story is the key to developing a love of reading in children”, he said – more so than literacy classes in school, which can be “a very negative experience”, for the many children he meets during visits to schools, whose first experience of books is in the classroom.

“They’re being taught to read before anyone has shared with them the pleasure of reading – so what motivation have they got to learn?” said Cottrell Boyce. “Even the ones that attain high levels of ‘literacy’ (whatever that is) are in danger of achieving that without ever experiencing the point of reading.” Frank Cottrell Boyce: ‘This is something people have done since the days of sitting around campfires napping flints. To stop doing now is to break the great chain of our being.’ 

Too much too soon? What should we be teaching four-year-olds

The first day of school is a momentous event in the life of a child. For many it is a day filled with pride and excitement. For others it is more stressful; they may cling to their parents, unused to being parted for so long.

In England, these extremes of experience are particularly marked because of the very young age at which children start formal schooling. Children begin school in the year in which they turn five, meaning that many children start school shortly after their fourth birthdays. England is unusual in this regard; in 31 out of 37 European countries children do not start formal education until they are at least six.

The age at which children start school may not matter as much as what happens to them once they get to the classroom. Given our backgrounds in developmental psychology and speech-language therapy, we think the current targets set for children in their first year at school are not developmentally appropriate. Our research published in the Journal of Child Psychology and Psychiatry demonstrates that the youngest children in the class find these targets particularly challenging.

England has a curriculum for Early Years Foundation Stage, which outlines developmental goals from birth to five years old. This includes three prime areas of learning such as personal, social and emotional development; physical development; communication and language; as well as specific areas of learning such as maths and literacy.

In 2012, the New Early Years Foundation Stage Profile was introduced, to document attainment at the end of the early years curriculum. The profile is completed by the teacher at the end of the first year in school, and children are assessed on the extent to which they meet or exceed expected progress on 12 key targets across these areas of learning. Those making expected progress are deemed to have achieved a “good level of development”. Here are a few of the key targets:

Dinnertime storytelling makes kids voracious readers

Family dinners can whet children’s appetites for reading.

As a young child, I loved to imagine myself as a pioneer girl in Little House in the Big Woods, eating fresh snow drizzled with maple syrup. I even pestered my mother to make this treat with the dirty snow that fell on our Manhattan sidewalk. Not a chance.

Years later, I honored my young sons’ request to try a coconut after reading the adventures of Babar. Who knew that even a hammer and chisel won’t crack these nuts? I resorted to clearing out the sidewalk below and then pitching the fruit out a third-floor window.

It worked, but thankfully there are many easier ways to bring food and reading together than hurling coconuts or eating dirty snow.

Here are some of the connections I researched while working on my book, Home for Dinner. And remember, none of these requires a gourmet meal or a trip to the bookstore. Library books and a takeout pizza are just as good.

Dinner conversation builds vocabulary

For starters, there is the linguistic pairing of reading and eating, shown in such common expressions as “devouring a good book” or being a “voracious” reader.

Those sayings reflect the reality that children who have regular family dinners have a real leg up on being good and early readers. Years of research from the Home-School Study of Language and Literacy Development have shown that dinner conversation is a terrific vocabulary booster for young children – even better than reading aloud to them.

Music Makes You a Better Reader, Says Neuroscience

It’s known as the “musician’s advantage.”

For decades, educators, scientists, and researchers have observed that students who pick up musical instruments tend to excel in academics—taking the lead in measures of vocabulary, reading, and non-verbal reasoning and attention skills, just to name a few. But why musical training conferred such an advantage remained a bit of a mystery.

Nina Kraus, director of the Auditory Neuroscience Laboratory at Northwestern University and research collaborator on the Harmony Project has spent her life surrounded by music. And, today, she is studying how musical training can harness the brain’s natural plasticity, or adaptiveness, to help students become better overall students and readers, even when they grow up in impoverished environments.

The “musician’s advantage,” traditionally, has been difficult to study. Often, musical training is obtained privately in one-on-one instruction—something available only to kids of higher socio-economic status. This meant that researchers couldn’t say for certain whether music was responsible for the better academic outcomes observed or whether some unrelated factor, linked to living in a home in a higher income bracket, was behind any observed difference. After all, more affluent parents are often better educated themselves—and have more time and resources to help children with their reading and school work. Perhaps music wasn’t the true differentiator.

Solving the Literacy Gender Gap in Morocco

Morocco has long been touted as a beacon for progress in the Middle East and North Africa, especially since 1999, when King Mohammed VI ascended to the throne. Over the last 15 years, the developing country has seen the advancement of women’s domestic rights via the Moroccan Family Code, the ratification of the United Nations’ Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination Against Women, and a variety of innovative educational reforms. In fact, the first 10 years of Mohammed’s reign were dubbed the “Education Decade,” resulting in impressive increases in literacy. UNESCO estimates that just 41.6 percent of the Moroccan population was literate in 1990; by 2010, that figure had spiked to 56 percent.

But despite this long-term commitment to education and human rights, there remains a startling division in literacy rates between Morocco’s urban and rural populations—with an even more significant gap between men and women. In many ways, the urban/rural achievement gap may not be so surprising: Rural villages can be many miles away from schools; temperatures are sweltering in summer and can be freezing in winter; main roads are often crowded and in poor shape; and alternative transportation is out of reach for many poverty-stricken families.

But the unique obstacles faced by many rural women and girls—who enroll in lower secondary education at a rate of 26 percent compared to 79 percent for rural boys—are considerable. For traditional Moroccan families, it’s simply not acceptable for young girls to walk to and from school alone, or to live away from home to attend school if a daily commute proves taxing. While illegal, underage marriage remains a reality for many Moroccan girls, and often eliminates any potential for a secondary education. Some estimates claim that even five years post-“Education Decade,” illiteracy rates for rural women and girls in Morocco remain as high as 90 percent (though official sources put the figure at 54.4 percent).

Still, a pragmatic optimism lingers in Morocco, as a variety of policies and programs actively target illiteracy to this day. The nation’s longest-established literacy program—mahou al omiya (Erasing Illiteracy)—directly tackles the rural gender gap each night in the classroom. This free program, held in the evenings at nearly every public school in the country, is geared toward adults who never had the opportunity to attend or complete school. Open to attendance by both men and women, it’s women who are most in need of literacy support—so it’s women who most often attend.

School libraries must be 'fit for purpose' says cross-party report from MPs

Libraries All Party Parliamentary Group says 'it is vital that all schools have a good library to ensure children develop essential literacy and digital literacy skills'.

 

 

A cross-party group of MPs and peers has called for there to be a good library in every school in the UK in a new report which says that libraries make "a huge contribution to young people's educational attainment".

The call follows a long-running campaign from authors, who believe primary and secondary schools should be required by law to have a school library and a trained librarian, and comes in the wake of new figures from the Department for Culture, Media and Sport showing a "significant decrease" in the number of adults using a library. In the year to March 2014, just 35% of adults had used a library, compared to 2005/2006, when 48% had used a library, said the DCMS's Taking Part survey .

The new report, The Beating Heart of the School, comes from the Libraries All Party Parliamentary Group, and states that "it is vital that all schools have a good library to ensure children develop essential literacy and digital literacy skills in order to fulfill their potential".
Although there are no new figures about the number of school libraries in the UK, the report says recent surveys show that 40% of primary schools with designated library space have seen their budgets reduced, and that almost a third of libraries have insufficient space. It also pointed to "one of the most concerning trends": the fall in the number of librarians in English schools, with data from the Department for Education showing a reduction of 280 librarians in two years.

Pupils struggling with reading need early intervention, not a three-month summer school

Reading capability is vital for young people to be able to access and engage with the curriculum by the end of primary school and even more so at secondary school. But the data we have indicates that a substantial proportion of pupils have not reached a high enough level to succeed in their studies – with significant implications for their lives after they finish school.

In 2013, 75,000 children (about one in seven) did not achieve the minimum expected level on national assessments for reading by the end of primary school (Level 4). If these pupils perform in a similar way to those who did not achieve Level 4 in English in 2008, only one in ten of these pupils will achieve five grades at A*-C, including English and Maths, at GCSE.

That problem is only compounded by England’s unequal education system, which does a bad job serving disadvantaged children and young people: on average, struggling readers who are eligible for free school meals are less likely to achieve Level 4 than their peers. Those who are behind are likely to be even further behind than other struggling readers. In 2013, 27% of white British pupils eligible for free school meals did not achieve Level 4.

Our aim in producing “Reading at the Transition”, with the Education Endowment Foundation (EEF), was to review the effectiveness of different approaches to helping struggling readers catch up with their peers. It is based on the framework of the Sutton Trust/EEF Teaching and Learning Toolkit, a comparative analysis of different research-based approaches to improving attainment, together with an overview of the costs, to help schools make decisions about how to allocate their funds (particularly the pupil premium).

Phonics education technique shown to have positive impact on literacy

New study is a vindication of the technique which teaches children to read using phonetic sounds rather than letters.

Children taught to read using phonics techniques have achieved "very high" results, according to new research, which cited the example of a seven-year-old boy able to read and spell to the level of a 13-year-old.

The results of the study, by the educational psychologist Marlynne Grant, are a vindication of the widespread introduction of synthetic or blended phonics in schools in England since 2010. The method teaches children to read by identifying and pronouncing sounds rather than individual letters.
The publication of the research comes as 500,000 year one children in state primary schools in England take the phonics screening check this week, a brief test to measure progress.

Teachers and unions initially resisted the use of the check, which followed the coalition's introduction of compulsory synthetic phonics to teach literacy in state schools. But since then, more teachers have embraced the method, which is supported by research in the UK and abroad.

The new study followed a group of 30 children who were taught using phonics for the first time in reception, and tracked their progress for three years, to the end of year two in primary school.

Afghanistan's gains at risk as it enters period of political uncertainty

Education minister has helped bring millions of children into school system against a backdrop of conflict and Taliban threats

Afghan girls attend a home economics class at the Speena Adi school in Kabul. Photograph: Christian Science Monitor/Getty

Afghanistan is on track to bring 2 million registered but absentee schoolchildren, many of them girls, into the school system by the end of next year, according to the country's education minister.
In a relentlessly upbeat progress report, Farooq Wardak, who has been in charge of education since 2008, said 1 million children would be absorbed this year and a similar number next year.

Should this happen, it would mark a remarkable turnaround for Afghanistan's schools. The numbers are certainly impressive as Wardak rattles them off. In 2001, when the Taliban were overthrown, there were fewer than 1 million children in school, very few of them girls. Now there are 10.5 million, 42% of them girls, although some question whether the number of girls in school is that high. As for teachers, there are 220,000, 33% female, compared with 20,000 and 16,600 schools, compared with 3,000.