Writing creatively

We all know that the burden of marking and assessment is particularly heavy if you’re an English teacher. And yet one of the things that keeps us going can be those little moments of frisson when we read something that one of our students has written that is just fantastic. When we’re just captivated by the description, or the idea, or the character… when we feel that we’re in the hands of a real burgeoning writer at work.

It might not happen very often. But on those rare occasions when it’s happened to me, I can remember feeling rather humbled and wishing that I could encourage more students to be that creative and imaginative.

When getting ready for some Year 10 creative writing recently, a colleague mentioned in passing a starter activity he had experimented with which had yielded some really enthusiastic responses. The basic idea is that you put a simple grid on the board:

Age	Male	Female
5-7	1	2
15-18	3	4
30-40	5	6
60-70	7	8

You also display the following questions:

• What is on their feet?
• Describe their hands.
• What is in their pocket?
• Where are they going?

Students nominate a box from one to eight. They have to use the questions to fill in the box. If something interesting appears, the teacher’s job is to try to ask some leading questions to draw out more information. The student’s job is to say whatever comes into their head. This is often started as a whole-class activity, but can also be done in small groups equally well – when the class are comfortable with the idea.

My colleague was right. I tried this with one class – as a starter activity – and an hour later we were still going. The students came out with the most incredible ideas: the depth and sensitivity of their imaginations seemed to just take off!

Sarah Darragh
English Teacher and author of A Bridge to GCSE English

The Read On Student Writing Competition has begun!

Calling all students! The Read On Student Writing Competition is now open to all UK students aged 11-16 - with the fantastic prize of an iPad 3 for the winning story.

Entering is easy. Just -

Imagine you are turning into a werewolf.

In no more than 500 words, continue the story of your transformation. Submit all entries via email to education.marketing@harpercollins.co.uk. The closing date for the competition is 30th June 2013.

All entries will be shortlisted internally by Collins Education, and then Read On authors Alan Gibbons and Robbie Gibbons will select their favourite to win the grand prize.

We’ll post the best entries up here too as the competition continues – so keep an eye out on the website for yours!

Watch Alan and Robbie Gibbons talk about the Read On competition

Tips for effective reading lessons

Ah, the Reading Lesson! As an English teacher, I fight to have them protected, but then dread each week as I face another hour of bored-looking year 7s, dragging their heels around the library bookshelves and not-so-discreetly whispering behind their tomes.

In a bid to make this time more constructive, over the years, I have developed written activities to test students’ understanding of what they have read and (hopefully) to develop their reading skills.  However, this seems to detract from the whole purpose of the reading lesson - to read - and from promoting the enjoyment of this for students of all abilities. And as recent studies have proven (what all English teachers already suspected) that reading for pleasure is a greater indicator of academic success than social background, encouraging students to read for the sheer hell of it is now officially important.

Nevertheless we still have to answer to the powers-that-be about lesson outcomes. I have a plan. This term, we are going to throw away the pens (well, keep them in their pencil-cases) and just read. And talk. And listen. And then read some more. At the beginning of the reading lesson I am going to tell students that in the final 15 minutes, they will be asked to read out the ‘best paragraph’ they have read during the lesson. For the more able students, I will ask them to explain why it is the ‘best paragraph’ they read that lesson and as the weeks go on, I will ask students to explain why other students’ ‘best paragraphs’ are successful.

With any luck this will lead to discussions about tension, genre, writers’ style, and craft.  It should also link to the texts we read in class and help students to transfer their skills of analysis independently. By the end of the year, I hope to report that my year 7 students are now engaging with their reading in a more critical way. And most excitingly, for one hour a week, there will not be a pen in sight!

Naomi Hursthouse
Advance Skills Teacher
Steyning Grammar School

Skulduggery Pleasant now available for schools!

The first volume of Derek Landy’s much-loved fantasy series Skulduggery Pleasant is now part of Collins Readers – our flagship collection of inspiring fiction for schools featuring top teen authors.

Meet Stephanie Edgley. Her uncle Gordon is a famous writer of horror fiction. But when he dies and leaves her his estate, Stephanie learns that while he may have written horror, it certainly wasn't fiction.

With its raucous mix of fantasy, comedy and horror, Skulduggery Pleasant is the perfect choice to engage Key Stage 3 readers of all abilities.

Plus, teachers can download a free scheme of work at www.collinseducation.com/skulduggerylessons. This includes lessons plans, activity ideas and worksheets fully matched to the KS3 Assessment Objectives.

Get Skulduggery Pleasant for just £8.30 a copy here.

Reading Buddies

I have two big problems with my reading lessons, at present. Firstly I am becoming increasingly frustrated by students saying ‘I don’t like ANY of the books in here!’ as they point vaguely at the library shelves containing hundreds upon hundreds of books. Next on my list is that although Ofsted now officially approve of reading for pleasure ("Schools that take the business of reading for pleasure seriously, where teachers read, talk with enthusiasm and recommend books, and where provision for reading is planned carefully, are more likely to succeed with their pupils' reading." Ofsted, 2011), we still need to prove the impact of reading lessons on our students’ learning. So, what’s a teacher to do? Turn my whinging students into Reading Buddies.

The first stage of this experiment was to do a reading audit with my year 7 class. The audit asks basic questions about their favourite genre and how much they enjoy reading. (Download the printable audit here). I then used the audits to pair up the students in my class. The theory is that students will be firstly paired according to their favourite genre(s) of books and then by how much they enjoy reading, with more enthusiastic readers paired with a less fervent one. The result is hopefully going to be that students can now advise and enthuse each other about what books to read in a much more effective way than me dragging them round the library and pointing out all the books I feel they should enjoy. In order to encourage this affiliation, all students will need to recommend a book to their buddy, which they will then need to read and write a short review on before the end of the term.

The second stage of this experiment is designed to prove the impact of reading in these lessons.  I have put together a reading journal, which asks students general questions on all of the Reading Assessment Focuses. Students have a choice of questions to answer in the second half of the reading lesson and then they will take part in a self and peer assessment activity. This should hopefully aid students in becoming more analytical about their own reading choices with the help of their reading buddies. Download the reading journal to try with your own classes here.

I think this will all work best if the relationship between the reading buddies grows into a positive collaborative partnership. To aid this I am going to intersperse these activities and silent reading, with paired reading; recommendations of the ‘best bits’ from the lesson’s reading; along with some other reading games so that working together becomes less of a duty and more of a joy. Hopefully then my reading lessons will finally become about ‘reading for pleasure’ (in a measurable way, of course).

Naomi Hursthouse
Advance Skills Teacher
Steyning Grammar School