Writing

Talk for Writing

At Bridgetown we want all our children to develop into thoughtful readers and creative writers and it is through the Talk for Writing approach that we believe we can achieve this. Through its multi-sensory and interactive teaching, it enables children of all ages and abilities to learn to write a wide range of story/text types using various methods, including:

• listening to and learning texts and stories;

• taking part in drama and role-play;

• drawing and story mapping;

• collecting words and language strategies

• co-constructing toolkits to draw upon to effectively write for different purposes

• building their working knowledge of grammar.

• Applying learning in Short Burst Writing tasks

Talk for Writing is embedded at every phase of the teaching sequence which is structured to include teacher talk, supported pupil talk and independent pupil talk. We believe that Talk for Writing is an approach that goes beyond the development of children’s general speaking and listening skills – it allows children to explore the processes involved in being a writer, and extends oral rehearsal so that it becomes a draft for their written pieces. The approach supports the children to move from talk into writing.

Genre Mapping

We believe that it is essential for children to experience a broad range of reading and writing genres and they progress through their literacy journey. To ensure that the children in Bridgetown are accessing a broad range of rich and engaging genres, we have mapped out the progression in each year group. The key genres we cover are as below, however you will also see that we study these genres plus more! Exploring sub-genres and other engaging writing forms:

The Writing Toolkits

To support our writing and as part of our Talk for Writing process, children analyse a Model Text through 'Reading as a Writer' to gain an understanding of some of the language choices which have been made to have an effect on the reader. We use this analysis to co-construct a Writing Toolkit, which can be used to support our own writing. The tools on the toolkit are practised in 'Short Burst Writing', 'Shared Writing' and then applied to our 'Independent Application of writing'. The toolkits include a language feature, the impact of that feature and an example.

Our toolkits

Progression of our toolkits:

The attachments below show how each toolkit progresses as children build on their knowledge on their writing journey in Bridgetown. Revisiting each toolkit every year allows children to embed prior learning and develop ideas further. Although toolkits are co-constructed as a class, the toolkits below are used to guide our Model Texts, planning and teaching to ensure that children are exposed to a wide variety of language choices and have opportunities to practise and build upon them as they progress through school.

Progress in Writing at Bridgetown

Through the use of our Genre Map and Writing Toolkits we ensure that children are exposed to the full National Curriculum for Composition, Transcription, Grammar and Punctuation plus that little bit extra to really enhance our writing. Have a look at the documents below to see how writing progresses in line with the National Curriculum as children progress up their writing journey at Bridgetown.