No really it has. I can’t even remember how I used to teach writing before it. I don’t think I really did, I think I just told pupils to write and then what happened happened!
We are really lucky to be working with an amazing primary school who have introduced us to, and trained us to use, Pie Corbetts’ Talk4Writing. It has taken me a while to get to grips with it and how it needs to work in my classroom and in a secondary context, but now I have the results are amazing. I’ve got students who aren’t using full stops and capital letters, not only doing that but using semi colons, question marks, exclamation marks. They are writing using figurative language and linguistic techniques. And while this is amazing to see whilst they are doing a Talk4Writing piece, what has truly blown my mind is that I’m starting to see it crop up in their writing, even when it’s not a Talk4Writing piece. I’m definitely a convert.
For anyone who isn’t familiar, Talk4Writing is a process of internalising text structures and techniques so that they can then be used in writing. The two ways that I know to do this are through text mapping and boxing up.
I’m not entirely sold on boxing up, I can see it makes a difference in the short term but I can’t seem to see any long term effects yet. I would love to hear from anyone using it effectively – as I suspect it is mainly user error.
Text mapping, however, is phenomenal. I’ve learned that the key is to start with a high quality text and know exactly what it is you want your students to be working on. Quite often, I will write this text or adapt an existing one to ensure it contains what I need it to. I’ve found, more often than not, this is also quicker than endlessly searching for the perfect text.
Original Text Example
So once I have my text, in advance I sit down and decide which parts I’m going to keep as text, as these are the parts that won’t change, the essential elements of techniques that I want to students to learn. Then as a class we work through turning the rest into a text map, which is essentially a series of pictures that represent the words. All the time we are going over and chanting sentences/ sections as a class to help students memorise the map and internalise those structures. A really important part of this is verbalising the punctuation too.
Text Map Example
Once we have our map, we practice it until I am certain that all my students can remember it. The next step is I get them to write the map back into words and when I first did this it amazed me. I had a class writing all reciting the map to themselves and punctuation wasn’t forgotten because it was part of what they were reciting. It looked and sounded so strange, like they were speaking some strange language!
Turning the Text Map Back into Words Example
At this point all they have done is memorized and reproduced the text you started with. So now it’s time to start innovating. Decide which pictures you are going to allow pupils to change. You need to get their heads around that they can change the topic but not the structure. I’ve found this takes practice. Students then independantly create their own map, with new pictures. So, a story about a fairy becomes a story about a goblin. A description of a fairground becomes a description of a desert island etc. The important thing is to control what they can and cannot change. If you want them to learn and use similes but allow them to get rid of like/ as then it isn’t going to have the desired effect! One way of doing this is by covering up the parts they can change so that it becomes a blank part of the map.
Innovated Text Map Example
Now they have their own map they need to say it, internalise it and remember it before the final stage of writing it into a full text.
Innovated Text Example
The text they produce is highly scaffolded and obviously not a representation of what they can do independantly. However, what I’ve found is with practice, time and use things start to stick. And I’m starting to see the techniques and structures we practice through Talk4Writing appear in pieces that aren’t created through Talk4Writing. It’s that memorisation and internalisation of the techniques which means a week later when I say to my Y7s, ok write a radio advert, they know exactly what I mean, how it should sound and what needs to go into it. And what they produce is 100 times better than anything they would have done.
As a side note, the other thing I love about it is that students love it. They are so engaged with the process. I never have such good behaviour in my class as when I do Talk4Writing. And, as an added bonus, I love that once I have my text I don’t have to plan my lessons for the week!
I really do believe in the power of Talk4Writing and that it definitely has a place in the secondary curriculum. It is very time consuming and it isn’t the only way to effectively teach writing. But it does make a difference and I really think it’s worth exploring and investing some time in.
Thanks for reading.
Ms H Eng
Just A Northern NQT 