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How independent does independent writing need to be?

14/9/2015

13 Comments

 
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As I travel around schools I am asked about independent and how independent writing should be. 

There are many different interpretations of 'independent' writing in schools which has been demonstrated on our Facebook and Twitter pages this week. 

The range is terrifying.  I have spoke to teachers where no independent writing takes place, although staff think what they are delivering is independent writing.  I have also spoken to teachers in schools in which independent writing is forced upon children at regular intervals whether they can do it or not! 

I looked for governmental guidelines and found the following on the assessment guidelines from 2014. (Tap to englarge) 

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It clearly states what independent writing is and how there must be evidence of it in order to give a level or an assessment. It doesn't clearly explain though what independent writing actually is.  One phrase I often here is 'Independent at the point of writing.'  This is often used when teachers build up to a piece of writing and then tell the children to complete an extended piece based upon their learning, the phrase 'Hot writing' seems to becoming more and more prevalent too.  However, if some schools are asking children to only write cold pieces for assessment and other schools are allowing teachers to have a lot of input immediately prior to the writing outcome are the children all on a level playing field?

The question is perhaps then how do we teach skills and then assess them afterwards?  The answer maybe is a gap, a gap between the taught skills and then assessing them.  The length of this gap depends on the age of the child.  
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Two responses from Facebook which show the differing approaches taken by teachers. 
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It has been suggested that teachers deliver the skills and build up to a piece of writing before asking the children to apply the skills in a different context.  
However, sometimes the lines can become blurred here too.  If a teacher teaches 'Diary entries' using a core text for example 'Holes' with a written outcome - is it really a different context asking children to write a diary immediately afterwards in a foundation subject, for example, as an Anglo-Saxon?

Perhaps asking children to create a diary of an Anglo-Saxon a week later then that is a big enough gap.  However, if the teacher reminds the children of the diary format or provides success criteria then is this still independent writing?  If we give the children success criteria how do we know if they would have included it without?

What is the answer?  A range of writing.  A range of writing which has been built up to, writing which is a revisit of skills learned with a quick reminder of features and writing which is a revisit of a learned text type at a much later date without a reminder of features and success criteria. 
I would love to hear your views on this, please share them in the comments below. 

Many Thanks

Rob 
13 Comments
mike highton
17/9/2015 10:42:15 am

Hi Rob - expereinced all of the above across different schools. Hot/Cold tasks are current. Success Criteria is considered as not good - pupils consider failure if not used???

We using T4W across school now and are in process of whole school change.

Im Y6 again so still in the catch up phase - but can see the value of the mixed bag of methods for different pupils. Key skills being taught - different pace - is more evident to meet the pupil's needs. Time - Targets - Progress - Achievement are also an issue linking to Attitudes (pupil/teacher) & behaviour.

Thanks for the read.

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Katie
18/9/2015 07:45:06 am

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Peter
20/9/2015 06:57:34 pm

This drives me mad. As an adult, I would not expect to have to write ANYTHING without being able to refer to guidance to help me. That may be a simple list of features, it may be about effective structure, it may be a reminder of how to reference correctly. The idea that a primary age child should be judged on a piece of writing without any support is, to my mind, literally absurd. We are asking more of them than we are of ourselves! How many teachers at primary level can rattle off all the features of all the different genres? How many have to double check the difference between a legend and a myth before they plan their unit.

Building up to an independent piece is just fine, if you ask me. Having features available as success criteria on a working wall is fine too. Success criteria on labels also fine. Dictionaries and toolkits on desks fine too.

But I do know many will disagree, because many have forgotten, in my view, what it is like to be a primary age child.

ONLY the deeper children should perhaps write cold, as they can mix and blend genres. But even they should be able to use reference materials to look up features, words, phrases etc....

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Hannah
22/9/2015 03:58:10 pm

Totally agree with you Peter. We expect children to jump through hoops that we wouldn't jump through ourselves. Children should be supported all the way in producing writing. Editing is an important skill which we teach in school. Where is the opportunity for this in assessment if children are expected to produce the perfect piece first time round? How many times do we re-read and amend what we write before we are happy with something. Can we write a lovely piece of narrative without some great inspiration behind it? Cold writing is just that....flippin' cold.

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Carl Ayre
27/10/2018 11:23:57 am

Right on brother!

Couldn't agree more.

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Charlotte
23/9/2015 06:07:00 am

Having worked in publishing, prior to jumping ship to teaching, I find the ehole independent writing assessment process ludicrous. It bears no relation to any stage of writing I have ever encountered. Surely the most valuable tool we teach is the ability to find the best model and then learn how to adapt it to the needs of your communication.

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David O
25/9/2015 09:44:12 pm

Interesting post, thanks very much. This question pops up at virtually every moderation meeting I attend. I have some excellent writers in my class and always get asked "how much support did they have for this?" The answer? The same amount of support they had for the last piece of writing in this genre. However, I can show they have independently applied the skills they learnt in their last piece. For example our latest narrative focused on varied openers. Last term we studied complex sentences. Despite not being reminded of how to write in complex for almost 10 weeks, they could still use complex sentences. Hence, independent application of a skill and progress recorded. Next time round I'll focus on another aspect and check to see whether they are still independently applying all there other skills.

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Kate
10/11/2015 06:29:15 am

What's the point of coming to school if they aren't actually going to be taught? A good input is our job. I understand the need for independent writing and I understand the government want and need their good scores but when did we forget that these are still children were talking about!

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Rob link
10/11/2015 06:42:41 am

Every single day in every single lesson? When do they get chance to write for enjoyment? When do they get to show off what they have learned? There needs to be times when they work independently in order for them to develop resilience and retrieval skills

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Matt
10/11/2015 07:00:59 am

My friend is an author. He writes something, it gets torn apart and sent back. He re-writes, it gets more editing and sent back. He re-writes it and it may finally be ok. I used to work at a newspaper. I would write something and it would get checked by my line editor, a sub-editor and then then the editor. At all times I could talk to my colleagues and look at similar work. Expecting children to write independently is complete nonsense, nowhere in this world will you find published, academic work that is not written without support and help.

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Mavis link
10/11/2015 08:18:05 am

Thank you for this thought-provoking post. I agree with all the comments above.

Cold writing often puts fear into children like it did to me when I was in Primary and Secondary school. and they become lost for words when looking at a blank sheet of paper and hearing or seeing no words to encourage them.

I can recall that as a child we were rarely taught 'style' and often had to write 'cold'. The only stimulus might have been the title of the story. My stories had no style, but sentences were grammatically correct and spellings were good.

As a result in teenage years in grammar school I struggled with essays in subjects such as English, History and Religion. I don't recall having any training in improving the style of my writing and this resulted in average or lower than average results in tests and the term's work, which made me feel sad.

This continued to Teacher Training. Even in this environment, in the 1960s, no one thought that this would be a useful training area to help us teach children in school.

As a tutor, later in my life I found excellent study guides to help my students and I improved my skills alongside my students. It wasn't until my late 50s, when I decided to join the OU that I received explicit training in writing style for my subject. This I will value for ever because finally I had the comment on an essay "You write like an expert."

Some children have a gift for writing, with minimal help, in a beautiful and relevant style, just as my childhood friend Lesley did. I had a gift for the mechanical side of sentence construction, but very little style. I would have loved the teaching that children have in school nowadays to improve their writing.

Keep the writing 'hot' and leave 'cold' to a minimum. 'Cold' has the effect of 'freezing' some children (like I was). Practising writing 'well' improves writing and motivates and warms children to becoming a writer. Practising writing 'less than well' has a cooling effect and destroys writing and motivation.

Athletes practising badly without an excellent coach will rarely excel and this applies just as much to learning to write.

You're all doing a great job for the next generation. Keep questioning the 'experts' and ask for more definition and above all, the reasons for it.

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Nina
12/11/2015 06:38:35 am

Even within one school just how independent, independent writing is varies, even with guidance. I think the problem being is some teachers see it as an assessment of their teaching rather than an assessment of the children!

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Fran
4/2/2018 03:58:31 pm

I work with special needs KS1 and KS2 children and this question is often on my mind when we come to do a longer piece of writing. For them to succeed in their writing, there needs to have been a large amount of support and scaffolding in place building up to a larger piece of writing. How then, can I say that they have written independently?

I work on the principle that each one of my children has a particular target they are working towards - that may be writing the initial phoneme for one or forming most letters correctly for another. The work we do together to build up to their writing enables them to actually produce a piece of work - and get support with their targets - while the small part I wish to assess, I leave unsupported whilst they're writing their final piece.

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    Rob from Literacy Shed

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