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 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 compelling and engaging sentences.  This class is based on a UK Year 4 level, however, older students from an ESL background will benefit from this technique. 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 beautiful story based on the heartwarming and wise story called 'The Boy, the Mole, the Fox and the Horse' by Charlie Mackesy. Students do not need a copy of this book as we are only using some of the pictures in the story as inspiration for our writing. Altogther, there are 8 writing lessons and then an editing lesson. 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.  Students are welcome to send in their weekly writing at any time during the week. I will give all students personal feedback with a video recording so that they can see exactly where they did well and what they can edit.

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