Writing can often seem daunting and so often an entire writing piece or story is the primary 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 are 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 are repetition, similes, onomatopoeia, alliteration, rhyming, personification, adjectives, adverbs, complex sentences and adverbial phrases to name a few. 

In this class, students will be writing an exciting, historical and narrative story based on the book, The Stone Age Boy by Satoshi Kitamura.  A child tells the tale of his adventure into the past, meeting a Stone Age family.   Students do not need a copy of this book. Each week there will be two lessons. In each lesson, we will explore various writing techniques and outcomes and I will model this for students so they know exactly what to do, and are free to change theirs as much as they want or stick closely to my model.  By the end of the fifth week, each student will have a beautifully written, top-quality essay that will be full of important writing tools.  It is important that students write their six writing chunks at the end of each week if they can. I will check regularly and give a personal video-recorded feedback discussion with each student.  Students are welcome to send in their weekly writing at any time during the week. These lessons are based on a Year 3 UK level (7-9), however, the age range is flexible for students with mixed abilities. Students will be guided with each lesson so they can either simplify their sentences or add on more challenging aspects to their writing

Lessons will be uploaded on the classroom page as an unlisted youtube link. When the link is clicked- the lesson will play.