This week I’ve marked a post-apocalyptic short story, instructions on how to master “keepy-uppies” and a formal letter of complaint to Dr Novario about a faulty fart gun. The last one made me laugh out loud, and not for the first time: the writing that my key stage 3 English students submit is never boring.
It hasn’t always been this way: up until a few years ago, no matter how hard I tried, students weren’t excited about writing, and I always ended up marking piles of tedious letters to a character that students weren’t interested in.
It was my own MA in creative writing that changed everything. I noticed a similarity between my fellow students at university and those in my class at school: when given strict writing briefs by a tutor, enthusiasm waned. However, when workshopping their own texts in progress, they were passionate and engaged.
I wondered if this change in approach could transform attitudes to writing in my own classroom. In the summer term of 2021, I decided to trial the workshopping method with my Year 8 class. So how did it work?
Getting school students excited about writing
I knew that, logistically, the tutorials needed to be in lesson time, and that students would have to work independently, in an environment conducive to the writing process - in other words, they needed to work quietly.
Outside of these restrictions, the first step was giving them complete autonomy: for one hour a week, I gave them free rein to choose a creative writing project to develop through workshops. They could choose anything they wanted to write about, and do so in whatever style they preferred. The only rule was that they had to write across different styles throughout the year: whether that be a formal letter, a report or a narrative.
The students were expected to work silently while I conducted tutorials at the front of the class. I used records of my tutorials to decide who I needed to see and when, and set firm rules about when work was ready to be written up for assessment.
Students had to plan and then draft their piece, and continue to work on it or start planning their next piece, until their follow-up tutorial. Only once they had implemented my feedback were they allowed to write up the work to be formally assessed.
The impact on learning
So, how did it go? Well, in the first term of using this approach, I marked a condolence letter to the Queen, a diary narrated by death and instructions on how to dispose of a dead body.
The pupils were enthused and begging to continue their writing workshops in the new academic year.
This level of engagement paid off. When we received the end-of-year assessment results, 27 out of 28 students had made expected progress, and 65 per cent of those had made higher than expected progress. It’s hard to compare this with previous cohorts in the past couple of years, however, as schools were closed for a term with minimal online teaching and in 2019, we had students in ability sets for English, whereas now we teach in mixed ability.
With the expected progress levels so high, however, we decided to try the approach with Year 7, too.
As well as better engagement in writing lessons, and improved attainment, there have been some other unexpected benefits.
Students have become more independent and have improved their research skills. They all produce a portfolio of writing, but the order and content of the pieces within it is their responsibility. They have continual access to folders of model examples that they can peruse and use for research, as well as a Google Classroom full of online resources. Less-able pupils still have prompts and scaffolding, but they tend to need them less because they are writing about their own interests.
Differentiation has also become more straightforward, as students work at their own pace and feedback is specific to them. I no longer have to balance the needs of the majority while trying to appropriately stretch and support the outliers.
With the new system, it may take one student three times as long as another to produce a final piece, but if that pupil has time to finish, and has an opportunity to workshop that draft with the teacher, then the final piece will be to a much higher standard.
Marking has become more manageable. I now receive around three to four pieces to assess a week. I often return studentts’ work within 24 hours, while it is still meaningful. In my 12 years of teaching, I have never been so up-to-date with my marking.
By February half-term, I had a student in Year 7 who had completed her portfolio to an exceptional standard, while others had two final pieces. Previously, these less-able students, at this stage of the year, might have completed three or four pieces of unfinished, unpolished work, which didn’t evidence anything.
For the rest of the year our most able students get the opportunity to complete a writing project of their own design - a chapter book, a poetry anthology, a biography of a sports star; opportunities to develop their own voice without the pressure of a grade. With mastery in mind, they mentor other students in writing workshops and work collaboratively on writing projects.
All students prefer it, and most love it: they cannot wait to show me their work. For the first time in my career, all pupils are engaging with writing.
Katie Packman is a head of English at a middle school in England
