Inspiring Writing in Primary Schools - Softcover

Liz Chamberlain; Emma Kerrigan-Draper

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1473916100 ISBN 13: 9781473916104

Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd, 2016

Writing is not a subject; it is part of reading, of speaking, and of listening.  Being a writer means being a reader, articulating stories and characters, listening to tales and learning from other writers. 

Through teaching exciting and engaging lessons you can help children to discover stories, create worlds, record events, mould characters and inspire each other as writers.

Inspiring Writing in Primary Schools helps you to teach writing and to know what a good writing lesson looks and feels like.  It gives you all the background theory you need to encourage purposeful writing across the curriculum. It includes exemplar lessons and offers them alongside a detailed exploration of what makes them good, and the theory behind them.  

As a teacher or trainee teacher, you can respond more imaginatively to the way you approach and teach writing.  This text will help you to seize the opportunity of the new curriculum and inspire fabulous writing in your classroom.

Review:

This book is written with infectious enthusiasm and is a must-read for student-teachers and all those looking for ways of inspiring the young writers they work with. A wonderful counterpoint to skills-based frameworks for literacy, this very readable book explores what it means to be a writer, and provides vivid examples, models and activities that highlight the importance of purpose, audience and context in writing classrooms and acknowledge the relevance of writing to the lives of children.  (Cathy Burnett) --Review

This is an empowering book, written with verve and enthusiasm.  It succeeds in reconciling the demands of the new National Curriculum with a deep understanding of the dynamics of becoming a writer and a powerful knowledge of how to draw children into the process.  The central metaphor of writing as travelling carries the excitement of discovery, which is enhanced by the author s direct communication with readers, inviting them to reflect on their own first-hand experience and challenging them to make writing a more engaging activity in their classroom.  The text is studded with arresting examples of children s writing of truly exciting writers at work .  
I really like the suggestion that the readers invite their children to create their own lists of 10 rights of the writer, then see how some of these might be incorporated in their teaching. The motifs that thread through the book backpacks of practice , teachers toolkit and take your bearings provide a practical signposting and also remind the reader that every writing experience has a pre-history, comes from somewhere, and the richer the background the stronger the writing.

(Henrietta Dombey) --Review

About the Author:

Liz Chamberlain is a Senior Lecturer in Primary Education at the Open University and is a former primary teacher, leading literacy teacher and Assistant Headteacher. Her main area of expertise is linked to the field of English and, in particular, children’s home writing practices. In particular, her interests focus on the ways in which children are positioned, and position themselves, as writers both at home and in school. She continues to work with children as co-researchers through the capture of on-going writing practices through the use of video and photographs. For four years she was the Strategic Consultant for the Everybody Writes national writing project and continues to use this work to reflect on effective literacy practices. She regularly runs after-school writing clubs in local schools.

Emma Kerrigan-Draper is currently a headteacher in a small city primary school. 

• Publisher: Sage Publications Ltd
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 1473916100
• ISBN 13: 9781473916104
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 160