ライティングクラブ: 一度に一文ずつ - 犬の物語

Writing can often seem daunting and so often an entire writing piece or story is the major outcome of a writing lesson. This is where I believe a change needs to happen. In order for students to feel confident in their writing they need to feel equipped with techniques, tools and ideas to create a successful sentence. Writing is made up of many sentences. Once a learner is confident in various writing techniques, they can apply this to any story or writing piece. In each class we will use a method called sentence stacking. This method of writing is used in many successful schools throughout the United Kingdom. An idea or writing extract is looked at and modelled. The techniques used in the model is discussed and students brainstorm various ways to use this technique in different ways and in their own words. Ideas are gathered between all the students and then a sentence is built.  Together and independently we will then create effective and engaging sentences.  This class is open to students of all writing abilities however, students should be able to write a simple sentence by themselves. Some of the techniques we look at is repetition, similes, onomatopoeia, alliteration, rhyming, personification, adjectives, adverbs, complex sentences and adverbial phrases to name a few. 

In this class students will be writing a lovely and heartwarming story about a dog called Winston. We will be writing from Winston's perspective. Winston starts of as a street dog but then gets taken in my a kind and wonderful man that we will call Dad. Dad and Winston have this perfect life until everything changes- Winston feels replaced by someone else. However- this eventually is not a bad thing. Come and join the journey and get immersed into this beautiful story. We will be watching short video clips from an animated video called Feast to inspire our writing. We will then analyse the clip and turn it into writing. I will explain and model exactly how to do this and students can send in their writing throughout the week. Students can complete each lesson in their own time, however if students pause the lessons and write during the lesson time it should take no longer than 45 - 60 minutes per lesson.

 I will provide feedback within the week that it is submitted. Feedback will be a personal video recording with comments about the work handed in. I have an encouraging teaching style and my feedback will also be constructive and encouraging. 

By the end of the fifth week (if two lessons are completed each week) each student will have a beautifully written, top-quality essay that will be full of important writing tools. They will be able to use this as a model for all future stories.  Each lesson will show students how to write at least three incredible sentences using certain writing techniques. Students are welcome to send in their weekly writing at anytime during the week. 

This story is for a Year 3 (UK level- 7-8 years old) student. If English is not a student's first language or if the student struggles with writing then this will be perfect for older students.