What is the research evidence on writing? - Department for Education

More documents

Recommendations

Info

action’; ‘<strong>the</strong> elaboration of <strong>the</strong> main event through action’; ‘<strong>the</strong> use of exclamations for impact’; ‘<strong>the</strong> use of adventurous vocabulary’. - There was also a low initial level of use, followed by a significant increase in <strong>the</strong> use of connectives to introduce suspense and <strong>the</strong> elaboration of <strong>the</strong> resolution through dialogue. - However, <strong>the</strong>re was also a significant proportion of pupils who used one of <strong>the</strong>se features in Year 5 but not in Year 6. In sum, <strong>the</strong> main findings suggest that children used a range of narrative techniques and <strong>the</strong>ir writing developed through a variation of means. 5. <strong>What</strong> do we know about <strong>the</strong> gender gap in writing? Th<strong>is</strong> section summar<strong>is</strong>es <strong>research</strong> <strong>evidence</strong> on <strong>the</strong> reasons behind boys’ underperformance in writing and <strong>the</strong> known available strategies to help <strong>the</strong>m. 5.1 <strong>What</strong> are <strong>the</strong> reasons for <strong>the</strong> gender gap in writing? As explained in section 3, pupils perform less well in writing than in reading, with girls outperforming boys throughout primary and secondary schooling. The underachievement of boys in Engl<strong>is</strong>h has been observed in many Engl<strong>is</strong>h-speaking countries. One way that <strong>research</strong> has looked at it <strong>is</strong> <strong>the</strong> relationship between male identity and achievement, suggesting that boys have been stereotyped as being not good at Engl<strong>is</strong>h and not seeing any value in literacy for success in life. O<strong>the</strong>r <strong>research</strong> however has indicated that gender alone cannot explain underachievement and wider socio-economic factors should be considered (Ofsted, 2005b). Inspection and <strong>research</strong> <strong>evidence</strong> has explored <strong>the</strong> possible causes behind boys’ underperformance in writing (Ofsted, 2005a; 2005b; Younger et al, 2005; Estyn, 2008; Daly, 2003; DfES, 2007). These include among else: Factors related to <strong>the</strong> quality of teaching such as teaching grammar separately from contextual<strong>is</strong>ed writing, inappropriate use of interventions, m<strong>is</strong>use of writing frames and a lack of connection between oral and writing work. School-level factors such as not offering children an active and free-play environment which has been associated with more progress in reading and writing. Behavioural and social-level factors as boys are more likely to be affected by negative peer pressure. Boys are also more likely to experience critic<strong>is</strong>m and a sense of failure at school, whereas girls are more inclined to give high status to hard-working pupils. Boys are more likely to be deprived of a male adult role model, both at home and in school, and th<strong>is</strong> has a negative effect on <strong>the</strong>ir achievement in general. Classroom-level factors such as ineffective use of ICT, setting and streaming. Factors related to <strong>the</strong> way lessons are conducted such as an emphas<strong>is</strong> on story writing, not giving boys ownership of <strong>the</strong>ir writing, a d<strong>is</strong>crepancy between boys’ reading preferences and writing topics, using ‘counting down’ time strategies and a d<strong>is</strong>like by boys of drafting and figurative language. 19
5.2 Strategies for helping boys with writing Evidence has identified <strong>the</strong> following strategies that can help boys with writing (Daly, 2003; Ofsted, 2005b): Type of strategies Examples School and classroom-level Strategies about teaching in general A range of specific strategies for writing o Use of active learning tasks, including drama strategies e.g. thought-tapping 7 and hot-seating 8 o Use appropriate, non-confrontational approaches to d<strong>is</strong>cipline o Target-setting, monitoring and mentoring o Use older pupils as male role models for example as ‘reading buddies’ or to publ<strong>is</strong>h <strong>the</strong>ir work for younger classes o Schools as learning organ<strong>is</strong>ations which foster and support teachers o Teachers having confidence in <strong>the</strong>ir abilities and having high expectations from pupils o Support independent pupil awareness and encourage pupils to be responsible for <strong>the</strong>ir work o Lesson planning and organ<strong>is</strong>ation, as boys can benefit from tightly structured and well-organ<strong>is</strong>ed lessons with clear learning goals o Explicit teaching about language, for example subordination and co-ordination. In addition, boys (and girls) can benefit from a range of diverse interventions such as stepped instructions using mini plenaries and task cards; using v<strong>is</strong>ual organ<strong>is</strong>ers and frames to scaffold text structure; <strong>the</strong> use of drama conventions to explore aspects of character, setting or plot; incorporation of ‘talk for writing’ time into literacy lessons so that pupils can talk about <strong>the</strong>ir text before start writing it o Topic selection in narrative writing o Medium term planning using frameworks which are adapted to meet pupils’ diverse needs o Planning writing using mnemonics as boys often have difficulties with timed writing and <strong>the</strong> process of ‘beginning, middle and end’ o Effective drafting should be an integral part of pair, group and whole-class teaching. Explicit teaching of drafting skills should include <strong>the</strong> use of photocopied 7 A drama strategy where individuals are invited to speak <strong>the</strong>ir thoughts or feelings aloud - just a few words. Th<strong>is</strong> can be done by tapping each person on <strong>the</strong> shoulder. 8 In th<strong>is</strong> strategy, a character <strong>is</strong> questioned by <strong>the</strong> group about h<strong>is</strong> or her background, behaviour and motivation. 20
Page 1 and 2: Research Report DFE-RR238 W
Page 3 and 4: Table of contents 1. Key findings .
Page 5 and 6: Sentence combining is</stro
Page 7 and 8: - Most pupils agree that writing <s
Page 9 and 10: achievement in writing is</
Page 11 and 12: - Ninety per cent of girls achieved
Page 13 and 14: achievement has the</strong
Page 15 and 16: the effect of cont
Page 17 and 18: and Year 10) made significantly bet
Page 19: eported in this se
Page 23 and 24: that use of some ‘technology-infl
Page 25 and 26: etter job The more I write, <strong
Page 27 and 28: The evidence sugge
Page 29 and 30: DfE (2012c): GCSE and Equivalent Re
Page 31 and 32: Tanner, E. et al (2011) Evaluation
Page 33 and 34: Pre-school attainment Children atte
Page 35 and 36: As can be seen from the</st
Page 37 and 38: level 2C and 6 per cent achieving a
Page 39 and 40: language was Englis</strong
Page 41 and 42: Table 10 % achieving 60% 50% 40% 30
Page 43 and 44: 10. Annex B: examples of techniques

What is the research evidence on writing? - Department for Education

Create successful ePaper yourself

Delete template?

Save as template?