Talk for Writing - Plymouth Teaching School

LIPS Project
Talk for Writing
KS2 Narrative March 2013
www.talk4writing.com
Aims for the day:
• Project Vision & Overview •Expectations & Organisation
•To introduce and explore the principles and
Talk for Writing - Narrative
practices of
•To explore how you might use the approaches to support
and enhance children’s writing development throughout your
school– TfW in practice!
•Reflections, actions, next steps
Improving communication, confidence &
attainment in writing
Working together to build a community of practice
Working together to embed excellence in writing
Develop action research to support and develop
T4W practice in Plymouth
Core elements :
> Whole School Training - all staff
> Project team - support and leadership
> Bespoke tailoring of school to school support to
embed practice
> Build sustainability through excellence & research
material case studies
KS2 Outline :
> Narrative Day - dream team
Gap Task: Baseline Data / Attitudes / Work through & embed process into
practice
> Non Fiction Day
Feedback / Cluster workshop format with examples of practice
Cluster development of excellent practice
Celebration Day : 20th Sept
The developmental exploration, through
talk, of the thinking and creative
processes involved in being a writer.
6
The big picture
Talk for writing – how to raise standards.
1. Motivation – self-image as a Writer.
2. Rich experiential and imaginative curriculum.
3. Increase reading – literature spine.
4. Learn and develop texts orally.
5. Daily phonics/spelling/sentence/grammar/
creative games
6. Shared/guided writing.
7. Formative assessment/ writerly talk
Yr 1 aa. Girl (November)
• Do you like writing - score: 9. ‘you can
sound all the words out’.
• What is hard about writing - ‘sometimes I
can’t remember to do all the capital words
and theres silent letters in them’.
• ‘Are you a good writer? How do you know?
‘Yes. I get all the words right.’
A Love of Language....
11
Word games, sentence games, playful writing,
creative games, poetry......
• Marathon runners practise daily.
• Writing is about creativity as well as ‘writing’.
‘I love playing the games because they sort of get you into a thoughtful
mood.’
‘It helps you get good at ideas. I have loads.’
‘When we started, I thought writing was BAD. Now I love it.’
‘I like playing the games because it frees your mind and you cannot get
anything wrong.’
Children - Teachers and TAs as Writers Project
What if.....
the Mona Lisa began to sing like Lady Gaga
yawned loudly,
asked the way to the shops,
winked at me,
ate a Big Mac and fries......
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Going Deeper......
Likes…
Dislikes….
Puzzles…
Patterns….
Surprise
Observation
Questions
Connections
16 14
Magic box....
In the City of Rome....
Jake skipped happily through the wheat field,
whistling loudly. The ice-blue sky was cloudless and
the sun beamed down bathing everything around him
in a golden warmth.
www.literacytrust.org.uk
Learning to love sentences..
Play with all those parts of speech.....play
with the structure of a sentence
The mouse ate the cheese.
The small, brown mouse ate the smelly cheese.
The small , brown dormouse nibbled the pungent stilton.
The small, brown dormouse nibbled the pungent stilton nervously.
The small, brown dormouse nibbled the pungent stilton nervously but he
kept his eyes on the cat flap at all times.
The dormouse, who was small and brown, nibbled the pungent stilton
nervously but he kept his eyes on the cat flap at all times.
The small, brown dormouse nervously nibbled the pungent stilton whilst
continually keeping his eyes on the cat flap.
Nervously, the small, brown dormouse nibbled the pungent stilton whilst
continually keeping his eyes on the cat flap.
Keeping his eyes glued to the cat flap, the small, brown dormouse nibbled
the pungent stilton nervously
Keeping his eyes glued to the cat flap, the small, brown dormouse nervously
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nibbled the pungent stilton.
55
Drop in – phrase, ‘ing’, ‘ed’
1. Mr Sidcup picked up the buttered toast.
2. The train conductor cuddled the python.
3. Berti ate a fruit pie.
4. Francis Drake began his famous career as a
pirate.
• Use a ‘ who ‘ clause
Other ‘drop ins’
Stargazer, who was only twelve that year, chased the go cart down
the hill.
• Use an ‘ ing ‘ clause
Stargazer, grabbing the burning flame, darted back into the cave
without a moment’s thought.
• Use an ‘ ed’ clause
Stargazer, exhausted from running so far, sat down on a cold rock
and waited.
• Use descriptive phrases
Stargazer, quick and alert, spun round.
Stargazer, with his long purple eyelashes, stared at the alien
• Use similes
Stargazer, as quick as a cat, pounced on the small creature.
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© Pie Corbett & Julia Strong
The Power of a Metaphor
a person
a place
an object
a mood
a colour
a number
a vegetable
a fruit
a vehicle
a TV programme
a plant
an insect
a character from a
book
kitchen of disasters.....
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Warming up the word
3 ways to trap lightning;
3 pieces of advice to a Dalek
wanting to move into the local area.
Create a metaphorical monster - eyes, ears, teeth, claws,
hair…..
If only.....
Playful writing.
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
If only
In my magic box
I want to paint
I wish I was
That was the day when
In my dreams I saw
Listen - can you hear……
Moving towards poetry.........................
Why play creative games?
To release inhibitions,
generate ideas
and develop creative thinking….
whilst – building vocabulary,
an interest in ideas words
and motivation to write.
At the heart of a writer.......
Poetry... not just for Christmas
Writers love words...
•concrete experience
•engage, excite, interest
Generate
Judge
•ability to generate words/ideas
Choosing words is what a writer does......
Playing about with language and ideas = poetry 9
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Planting the poetry seed.....
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Poetry
Two Main types:
•Scaffolded list or collage / use of a model, scaffold, idea, game
‘playful’ writing........
•Open
32 10
Short models/ scaffolds?
Longer models/ whole poems?
The_____________ looks like………
It reminds me of…..
It makes me feel…..
It sounds like…….
It seems to…..
It can……
It sometimes…….
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The pond looks like Cyclops’s eye.
It reminds me of cold places and summer holidays.
It makes me feel secret.
It sounds like silence or wavelets lapping.
It feels like a polished, wet mirror.
It tastes of mud.
It seems to do nothing but it is restless underneath.
It can be used as a frog’s swimming pool.
It can be used as a water skiing lake for mice.
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The_____________ looks like………
It reminds me of…..
It makes me feel…..
It sounds like…….
It seems to…..
objects
artefacts
music
artwork
images
It can……
It will…….
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The River
• 3 lines
• Ist = The river of..
• Add noun.... night , stars,
dreams, delight, hope ,
disaster, madness.....
• End Ist line with a verb, how
the river moves....drifts,
cascades, flows, creeps
• Line 2 starts with a
preposition.... by, beside,
around, towards, beneath
• Add a place
• Add on ‘of’ plus a noun.
silence,wishes,scars
• Line 3 starts with a simile,
‘Like”
The river of dreams drifts
Towards a castle of confusion
Like a comet’s tail
The river of night nudges
Past the city of silence
Like a velvet ribbon.
The river of disasters dives
Beneath the land of lanterns
Like a thread from a spider’s web
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The bee hovers.
Aubergine eyes glimmer.
Fragile wings quiver.
Lemon pollen dusts his pencil-lead legs.
Giant daisy petals curve back
and wave like long lost cousins.
Stripped body shivers in the summer
sunlight.
Storytelling
‘There have been great
societies that did not
use the wheel, but
there have been no
societies that did not
tell stories.’
Ursula LeGuin
Language of the Night.
38
Why Storytelling matters.
• The mind processes and understands the world and
ourselves through story architecture
- an internal neural story map.
•The brain’s desire for narrative patterns.
• Understand ourselves and our experience.
• Educational success - language and thought.
• Makes us feel ‘good’ - confidence, memory,
concentration, co-operation.
• Passes on values, culture - a sense of belonging.
Building a bank of stories
• Before school age 53 % are read to at home daily.
Once school starts this can actually drop off and by KS2,
the % falls dramatically.
So,..... we need to find ways to help children internalise
that language bank and build a store of stories,
rhymes,poems. You can't create/imagine out of nothing.
Imagination is the manipulation of what
you already know...
40 34
Building a store house of
stories
Language patterns
Settings
Characters
Vocabulary
motivation
Sentence Structures
Ideas
Genres
confidence
Plot Patterns
Story Structures
The Hardest Part of Writing…….
having ideas and enough of them
> developing ideas
> shaping the whole
> achieving sophisticated expression
> appropriate and varied sentence structure
> a strong and growing vocabulary
>
Developing thoughts and ideas and then organising them into words is
the core of learning.
Experienced v Developing
www.literacytrust.org.uk
Great readers make great writers.........??
43 33
Reading stories is not enough....???
Internalising Language
Learn language by: - Hear it, say it, read
it, explore it.
Recasting - extending.
Memorable, meaningful repetition.
Generative grammar.
Experience language deeply and
attentively.
Replicate children’s repetitive desire for
stories.
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Talking the text - the missing link
45 36
The 3
s
Invention
Imitation
- This is the ability to retell a story so that the child has a bank
of tales by heart. The stories are known so well that they have
become part of the long-term working memory, embedded and
internalised.
Innovation
‘what we can do in
collaboration today,
tomorrow we can
do alone’
- The ability to adapt a well-known story, in order to create a
new story, either by making simple changes ,by a more
complex retelling – embellishing the story, or by recycling the
plot.
Independent Application
www.literacytrust.org.uk
-The ability to draw
upon a full range of
stories, language,
experiences and ide
to create your own
story.
Orally
Written
Imitation
• Reading the text
‘Loitering’ with the text type..
Jump in, total immersion,
drama, role play, environment,
art work.........
• Talking the text
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Imitation
‘Talking the Text’
Participation Stories
Communal Story Telling
( word by word)
Retelling in pairs/groups
( embed the story)
Individual retelling
( embellish – innovate….)
Teaching a Communal Story.
Learning Communal stories
What did I do to help you learn the story?
What other things made it easy to retell the
story?
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Visual
Maps.
‘I’ll go and get a storymap. I can’t read
properly but I can only read those two.’
Pictures, objects, puppets.
Paintings and drawings and model
making.
52
Kinaesthetic
Build key language features into
stories.
Actions for events.
Actions for language features.
Provide cards with image+word.
Walking the story steps.
Drama - acting it out.
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Consistent Connectives
© Pie Corbett & Julia Strong
Meaningful & Memorable
Discussion
Baking gingerbread, wearing a red
cloak, Iron man’s scrap yard, an
African jungle, greek amphitheatre….
Environment
Drama / Hot seating?
Audience - buddy classes
56 32
Moving to independent retelling - not
word for word...
Hazel...
Time to retell theatre / puppets / art / role play/
drama........... TIME KS2!
57 46
Talking the Text @ KS2?
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Retelling a story orally
Communal retelling - word for word
as a whole class;
paragraph by paragraph in groups.
Independent retelling - dramatise and perform in own words.
Texts:
traditional tales;
Picture books;
Teacher written short stories;
Rewritten version of picture book,
short story or novel;
Learn a section of a novel.
© Pie Corbett & Julia Strong
Working with a novel
Varjak Paw
By SF Said
Boxing up
Cat is out in the city hunting.
Suspense – it gets frightening.
Cat has to hide.
Threat gets closer.
Cat manages to escape.
Cat reflects on what happened.
Imitation of focussed area..
Thunder growled overhead. Varjak crouched
in the darkness, staring. Wind lashed the tarmac
and the street lights flickered, casting shadows. He
could sense something crawling, something
creeping. A vague shape slipped into a doorway
and he glimpsed the flicker of a green eye.
Varjak’s fur prickled as he tensed himself, ready
to spring. What was it?
Time to reflect..........
64 87
Building a bridge to writing....
.....Innovation
65
Innovation
•Additions
•Substitutions
•Alterations
•Recycling the plot
•Change of viewpoint.
NB. Remember
the story…..
immersion in
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Oral innovation....
> Watch Charlie retell the turnip
> Retelling of ‘ The Papaya that Spoke’
© Pie Corbett & Julia Strong
Moving On...
Humpty
Main character Mitch is sitting
Dumpty sitting in dangerous at the edge of
on a wall
position
a canal fishing
Humpty
Main character Mitch falls in
Dumpty has a - disaster
the canal
great fall
Along came
kings horses
and men
Help arrives
Attempt to put Attempts to
him back
help fail
together fails
A couple of
fishermen
arrive
They try to
help but
cannot 70 73
Little Miss
Muffet sat on
her tuffet
Eating her
curds and
whey
Along came a
spider who sat
down beside
her
And frightened
Miss M away
71 74
Boxing up... a key strategy
re using the
structure
Internalising key
plot patterns
72
MC has a
special toy....
MC take the toy
everywhere....
Toy gets lost....
The search
begins....
Helper’ finds the
toy....
73 76
Place terrorised
by monster
Character in
peril
Brave hero
arrives
Hero V monster
Celebration /
reward
74 76
Internalising structures and
patterns
Only a few basic plots – some say only 6 !!
Basic plots, (" big patterns“) are revisited again and again
and become a blueprint for the imagination.
"The same images, with very little variation, have served
all the authors who have ever written."
Samuel Johnson
75 59
Common story plots:
• Quest
• Wishing
• Overcoming the monster ( huge!)
• Warning
• Lost / Found
• Rags to Riches
• Tragedy
Story type
Quests and journeys
Example
The Hobbit
Red Riding Hood
Where the Wild Things Are
Rosie’s Walk
Pattern
A character travels in search of something or someone – or to find
something or someone. Either from A to B or there and back again.
Cumulative tales
There was an Old Woman who swallowed
a Fly
The Hungry Caterpillar
The Enormous Turnip
On Friday Something Funny Happened
Very strong repetitive patterning – typical of some picture books but
also used often in traditional tales, for instance where 3 brothers all
carry out the same task.
Warning stories
Minpins
Why The Whales Came
The main character is warned not to do something or go somewhere
– ignores the warning and gets into trouble.
Beating the Baddie
The Iron Man
Jack and the Beanstalk
The Horse of Troy
Everything is all rright till a threat appears. Eventually this is
overcome.
Wishing tales
The Three Wishes
Galactic Snapshots
The Fib
A story involving someone who wishes for something but usually
there is a barrier that has to be overcome. A variation is where a
character is granted a wish but wastes it.
Transformations
Dangerous settings
Losing and finding
Cinderella stories,
The Gift from Winklesea
Woof
Beauty and the Beast
The Snow Goose
Harry Potter
James and the Giant Peach
Narnia
Holes
Little Red Hen
Owl Babies
Charlotte’s Web
A character is transformed in some way – rags to riches, ugly to
beauty, timid to brave. Occasionally, the transformation involves
changing ‘form’ or personality. In some stories a character learns so
much that their views or feelings are transformed.
These stories involve a character entering a forbidden or dangerous
setting.
A character finds or loses something of value.
Rescues
Sleeping Beauty
The Magician’s Nephew
A character has to be rescued.
Meeting someone
E.T.
Dancing Bear
Butterfly Lion
77 leads into a
The main character meets someone or thing that then
dilemma such as having to be looked after or kept secret.
Reading as a Writer…
“Getting under the car bonnet” of writing.
Key Questions :
• What effect has the writer created on the reader?
• How did the writer create the effect?
Creating our toolkits....
Lois.....
80
As the knight approached the ‘place of death’, a
clearing amidst the rocks at the base of the hills, he
heard a hideous roaring that filled the air with terror
and seemed to shake the very ground beneath his
feet. Breathing quickly now, his heart pounding faster
with every step, the knight strode fearlessly onward
amongst the bare grey boulders. Not one blade of
grass could be seen, a wasteland - stark and lifeless.
The monstrous beast, still hidden by the dark blanket
of smoke, moved ever closer. The stench of sulphur
invaded the knights nostrils as he waited, sword
outstretched towards the ominous darkness.....
When he ventured some distance into the forest, Little Billy stopped and stood
quite still, listening. He could hear nothing. Nothing at all. There was absolute silence.
Or was there?
Hold on just one second.
What was that?
Little Billy flicked his head round and stared into the everlasting gloom and doom of
the forest.
There it was again! There was no mistaking it this time.
From far away, there came a very faint whoozing whiffling noise, like a small gusty
wind blowing through the trees.
Then it grew louder. Every second it was growing louder, and suddenly it was no
longer a small wind, it was a fearsome noise that sounded as though some gigantic
creature was breathing heavily through its nose as it galloped towards him.
Little Billy turned and ran.
Little Billy ran faster than he had ever run in his life before. But the snorting noise
was coming after him. Worse still, it was getting louder. This meant that the thing, the
maker of the noise, the galloping creature was getting closer. It was catching him up!
Run Little Billy ! Run,run,run!
His mother’s words began thrumming once again in his head:
Beware! Beware! The Forest of Sin!
None come out, but many go in !
He dodged around massive trees. He skipped over roots and brambles. He bent low
to flash under boughs and bushes. He had wings on his feet he ran so fast. But still
the fearsome noise grew louder and louder as it came closer and closer.
Little Billy glanced back quickly over his shoulder, and now, in the distance, he saw
Imitation of focussed area..
Thunder growled overhead. Varjak crouched
in the darkness, staring. Wind lashed the tarmac
and the street lights flickered, casting shadows. He
could sense something crawling, something
creeping. A vague shape slipped into a doorway
and he glimpsed the flicker of a green eye.
Varjak’s fur prickled as he tensed himself, ready
to spring. What was it?
© Pie Corbett & Julia Strong
I switched on the torch and stepped inside. Things scratched
and scuttled across the floor. I felt Mina tremble. Her palms
began to sweat.
I held her hand tight.
“It’s all right,” I said. “ Just keep close to me.”
We squeezed between the rubbish and the broken furniture.
Cobwebs snapped on our clothes and skin. Dead bluebottles
attached themselves to us. The ceiling creaked and dust fell
from the rotten timbers. As we approached the tea chests I
started to shake. Maybe Mina would see nothing. Maybe I’d
been wrong all along. Maybe dreams and truth were just a
useless muddle in my mind.
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87135
Shared Writing......
Key Elements:
> Conveying the ‘Big Picture’
...all about purpose and effect.
Create wonder in readers mind
Make us feel sorry for a character
Build a liking for a character
Help create a vivid picture
Touch the atmosphere.................... etc
> Remember quality reading into writing...
Referring back to oral version, learning focus
exert, lots of further examples, reinforce
through shared/ group reading
As the knight approached the ‘place of death’, a
clearing amidst the rocks at the base of the hills, he
heard a hideous roaring that filled the air with terror
and seemed to shake the very ground beneath his
feet. Breathing quickly now, his heart pounding faster
with every step, the knight strode fearlessly onward
amongst the bare grey boulders. Not one blade of
grass could be seen, a wasteland - stark and lifeless.
The monstrous beast, still hidden by the dark blanket
of smoke, moved ever closer. The stench of sulphur
invaded the knights nostrils as he waited, sword
outstretched towards the ominous darkness.....
Shared techniques...
•Interactive..... Writerly talk ( BIG picture)
•Always write to the purpose NOT the tools
•Capturing ideas.... watch pace!
•Vary the talk
•Role of TA
•Hug closely to the model ?
•Preparation! Vocab / phrases /
techniques/questions
93
Key Stages
What effect are we after?
How did the author create impact?
List it – visual toolkits
Key egs writer’s journals for future
reference.
Collect more egs.
Modelled and shared writing…
then APPLY
When I came to my senses, I peered around the room.
I stood up. There was another door. It wasn't there
before. did the house want me to go in? Had the house
made a mistacke? there was only one way to find out.. I
went into the other room. It was colder than the other
room.
The floor boards were even more creaky. The air was
mistyer. There was a bed. A bed for animals. Tius
scared me. I decided to go back. The door wasn't there
eny more. The air was so misty, I alsmost suffocated.
There was a wardrobe. I opened it. There was a beast.
I was like a dog, but feathery and more visiouse. I
stumbled back, into another wardraobe. The doors
slammed shut.
Thomas
Shared Writing
Guided Writing
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Which basic plot pattern? e.g.
Journey stories
Warning stories
Beating the Beast
Wishing Tales
Transformation tales - Cinderella
Cumulative stories
2.Which focus, e.g.
• Suspense, surprise, action, openings/endings,
characterisation, setting, description, viewpoint.
3. Topic based or stand alone?
4. Link into nonfiction?
Overview – 5/6 week units ks1/2.
Poetry
Story
Describe Little Red Riding Hood
local wood Type - warning/journey.
Observation.
Go and
open the
door
Playful.
Nonfiction
How to Trap a Wolf
Type - instructions.
Focus - setting description.
Narnia - TLTW&TW.
Type - portal/beating Monster
Focus - setting/character
Centaurs/Beavers
Type - Nonchronological
report
Story Invention.
Time to use all those ideas and patterns!
• Regular oral storymaking sessions
• Creative writing sessions
• Boxing Clever…
• Whole school events
• Story boxes, story tents, story
museums.
• Story competitions
• Assemblies
• A story making classroom
• Parents and Families workshops
Make a purposeful space.
• Props / Hats / Unusual Objects
• Images ; characters / settings /objects
• Puppets, small world play
• Story cloths / cubes
• Story Mapping area – making books!
• Dictaphone / Digi Blue / Microphones/flip cameras
• 5 Ws / Boxing Clever / Story Mountain
• Key connectives / phrases display / story starts
Have fun !
use a story cloak
get in role
use a special chair
magic door / mirror
story carpet
Just have a go!
Action Stations:
• Next date : 7th June Non Fiction Group A
14th June Non Fiction Group B
• Baseline Data
• Attitudes / transcripts
• Magpie ! Be prepared to share: work,
writing,video..... ready for cluster work
• Qs ??
• Resources
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www.talk4writing.com
[email protected]
[email protected]
www.literacytrust.org.uk
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