At Wawne Primary School we use the inspirational Pie Corbett’s ‘Talk for Writing’ scheme from EYFS to Y6 as the vehicle for teaching writing. This ensures consistency and clear progression of specific vocabulary linked to ‘Talk for Writing’ and the National Curriculum. Using quality model texts, children work through stages to create a piece of writing. The stages are; Imitation, Invention and Innovation. More details of the stages can be found in Point 6 of our English Policy document.

The children are taught Non-fiction, Narrative and Poetry through this approach. Throughout the process, the children’s work is marked and areas for improvement or corrections are identified, allowing them to edit and improve their work as they go along. Formative assessments take place regularly to identify next steps.

Talk for Writing advocates that children imitate the key language needed for a particular genre orally, before reading and analysing it. Through fun activities they rehearse retelling the text, then through shared writing they are shown how to craft their writing in the same style. The approach includes imitation, innovation and independent application (invention) – a two to three week process depending on the genre being taught.

The Imitation Stage

The teacher establishes a creative context for each ‘Talk for Writing’ unit with a ‘hook’ to draw the children in. Teachers then introduce children to an exemplar text, supported visually by a text map. Actions are created to help the children recall the story or non-fiction piece and reinforce the specific language patterns. In this way, children hear the text, say it for themselves and enjoy it before actually seeing it written down. Children interact with the text through drama activities and internalise the language patterns through sentence and word games based on the text. Once they have internalised the language of the text, they are introduced to the written text and encouraged to identify the key writing ingredients and ‘magpie’ key words and phrases. Children will develop their understanding of the structure of the text with the use of the boxing-up technique and by analysing the key features.

The Innovation Stage

Once the children have internalised the text, they are then ready to start innovating on the pattern of the text. Using an adaptation of the text, children orally rehearse what they want to say then create their own version. During innovation, spelling, sentence games and drama activities continue to be incorporated so that children have a wealth of oral and written practice in the language features required to write. The key activity in this stage is shared writing – which helps the children to create their own version by ‘doing one together’ first. This begins with the children boxing-up their innovated version of the exemplar text. Each stage of the writing process is modelled by the teacher. Throughout this process key words and phrases and shared writing are displayed so when children begin to write they have models and examples to support them. Children are encouraged to swap their work with a response partner to discuss their successes.

The Invention Stage

In this stage, children move towards becoming independent writers. They write the same text type but choose the content. This stage still requires a ‘hook’, games to help children to internalise the language patterns and understand the text, boxing up and shared writing (driven by teacher assessment). Teachers guide children through the whole process which ends with rereading and polishing.

Coverage of Writing Genres

[pdf 308KB]