Safe and dangerous creative writing

Teaching students to write with effect is quite a tricky thing. Over the years, I have seen writing reduced to tick lists. The problem is that no two good pieces are really alike. You could create one tick list for one piece and then you’ll need a different list for the other piece. Both are widely different. 

Presion, subtlety and nuance are not things you can easily put on a ticklist. They don’t work in terms of easy to easy and therefore easy to mark aspects. You can spot a student who has used a simile. You cannot easily spot if a student has used a verb precisely and subtly in a sea of other words. The best writers might not use a simile, but the worst writers often do - continually. 

I have said for a long time that students are better writers when they are writing for effect. In the days of ‘Sexy Sprouts’, I approached non-fiction with this idea. The best non-fiction writing is written to make us feel. Emotions force students to make intuitive choices in their writing. They automatically make subtle and precise word or grammar choices when the effect is clear. Sadly, we often find that students are not so good when it comes to writing fiction. There are often the large few that read on a regular basis and have absorbed those nuances and specific elements of storytelling. 

We’ve recently been looking at creative writing with Year 8s. They are all planning to write a ghost story for an assessment. We looked at things in a much different way. We asked students to see if they could decide where the writer is making things safe and where the writer is making things sound dangerous. 

Extract from ‘Dracula’ by Bram Stoker  

Soon we were hemmed in with trees, which in places arched right over the roadway ‘til we passed as through a tunnel; and again great frowning rocks guarded us boldly on either side. Though we were in shelter, we could hear the rising wind, for it moaned and whistled through the rocks, and the branches of the trees crashed together as we swept along. It grew colder and colder still, and fine powdery snow began to fall, so that soon we and all around us were covered with a white blanket… The baying of the wolves sounded nearer and nearer, as though they were closing round on us from either side. 

  

We then asked students to decide on what percentage of the writing is safe and what percentage of the writing is dangerous. The problem often students face with writing is the balance between moods. It is either all dangerous or all safe. There’s none of that nuance to the writing. Students suggested that the percentage was 40% safe and 60% dangerous. What makes it safe? What makes it sound dangerous? Students were able to pick up that the ‘blanket’ of ‘powdery snow’ helped to contribute to this feeling. They picked up the ‘hemmed in’, ‘rising wind’ and ‘trees crashed’. They also picked up the ambiguous ‘frowning rocks guarded us’ as being something safe and dangerous. Students notice that the mood switched between the two and ended with a sense of danger because of the wolves. 

We then approached another extract. Where does it sound safe? Where does it sound dangerous? 

[1] In thirty-five feet of water, the great fish swam slowly, its tail waving just enough to maintain motion.  

[2] The boy was resting, his arms dangling down, his feet and ankles dipping in and out of the water with each small swell. 

[3] The boy stopped for a moment to rest.  The signals ceased.  

[4] The time it needed to lock on them, only an instant, for it was almost directly below the boy.  

[5] It rose, slowly at first, then gaining speed as the signals grew stronger. 

[6] The mouth opened, and with a final sweep of the sickle tail, the fish struck.  

Extract from ‘Jaws’ 

Interestingly, both of these extracts have safe and dangerous elements to them, but they convey them slightly differently and it is the balance between two moods that students need help on. Mood is never just one thing. It is far more complex. This complexity of mood needs spelling out and for the most a binary viewpoint of mood is helpful as you build up that complexity. Safe and dangerous. Superior and inferior. Calm and agitated. Confident and insecure. 

Students need to see that there are several ways to make things seem safe such as snow or a lack of movement. They need to see the different ways to make things seem dangerous. The reason why they tend to resort to cliches, when writing, is because of this lack of knowledge and experience. Plus, they also need to see things for themselves. 

From working on these two extracts, the students created a plan for their writing using the following questions: 

• What is going to create the elements of safety in the extract? 

• How am I going to suggest through clues that there is a danger lurking somewhere? 

They went on to create some really effective pieces of writing with the construction of two tones to their writing. With the mood / purpose in mind, their writing was much better than a previous draft they have done. Students love plot. In fact, the love plot more than anything and plot dominates the style of writing - and then… and then … finally …. I always say that the plot of a piece of writing should be small and powerful. The style around it makes it powerful. The opening of a letter can be more effective in storytelling than a group of zombies chasing some school kids. 

To be precise, detailed, subtle and nuanced, we need students to shift their emphasis in writing. We need to be more precise. Precise with ideas around mood. How many times do we ask students to write for a mood or moods? We need to shift their emphasis from plot and excitement to mood and feelings. 

Thanks for reading

Xris 

Whoa Camouflage - writing is never quite the way it seems

We never really talk enough about the complexity of reading and writing. And, we certainly don’t talk enough about the emotional complexity of writing or the psychology of writing (and reading). Instead, we tend to float around things. We tend to impose feelings we have to those we expect students to have. I love reading so you will love it too. Newsflash: the majority of the country loves football and not one speck of adoration has influenced me to watch a full match or contemplate watching the Euros this month. We transpose feelings or, worryingly, we impose feelings on students. That causes us to oversimplify reading or writing. It is because they don’t love it. It is because the task isn’t interesting enough for them. By assigning emotions, we undermine the real problem. 

Socially, we have this problem too. How easily do adults say ‘I’m not good at Maths’ or ‘I don’t like reading’? We frame things in terms of emotions and it is almost as if emotions become the buffer to the problem. I am not a bad writer but it is just that I don’t like writing. Look at how students rush to emotions when they struggle in a subject. It isn’t me - it’s just the teacher and I don’t get on. I don’t like their way of teaching things. These emotions are everywhere and they cloud what the real problem is. 

Take this following scenario which happens a lot in schools across the country:  A student who struggles in English. On a good day they could get a Grade 4. Most of the time they get 2s or 3s. They arrive for their final English exam. They write nothing on the paper. Not one word. They sit and fold their arms. Do nothing. Why does the student do this?  

They did it for some twisted logic. If they wrote nothing down, then they didn’t fail the exam. They just chose not to write. They were in control. It wasn’t that they failed the exam, but they made a choice. They had the power. The agency. Now, we all know that it is self-destructive, but in the student’s mind they have won. Won whatever battle they think they are facing in their minds. We could of course frame this in emotions. He was scared. He didn’t like the subject. He panicked. All valid but they don’t rationalise the logical choices made by the student. We view emotions as the cause rather than the consequence of things. 

PE, Art and Maths are subjects where proficiency is quite transparent. I chose those subjects because for me, at school, I knew I wasn’t so good in these subjects. It was clear to the world, it was clear to me and it was clear to my peers. Being picked last to play on a team in football doesn’t fill you with confidence in your abilities. Those three subjects had a clear view of proficiency. The first picked for the team was the best. The last one picked for the team wasn’t the best.  

Subjects like English struggle with that transparency. English is the subject where ‘masking’ I say happens all the time. A description from the National Autistic Society wrote this and I thought it was so apt for English. 

Masking is a strategy used by some autistic people, consciously or unconsciously, to appear non-autistic in order to blend in and be more accepted in society. Masking can happen in formal situations such as at school or work and in informal situations such as at home with family or socialising with friends.

Masking is sometimes referred to as ‘camouflaging’, ‘social camouflaging’, ‘compensatory strategies’ and ‘passing’. Research suggests autistic people learn how to mask by observing, analysing and mirroring the behaviours of others – in real life or on TV, in films, books, etc.

Source: https://www.autism.org.uk/advice-and-guidance/topics/behaviour/masking

We have students who camouflage their writing and reading to fit in English. We all do it at some level, but I think ‘masking’ is the biggest thing we haven’t addressed in the subject. Students pretend to be doing stuff so their inabilities are not flagged to the world. Ok, so how do I see that masking? 

We see it all the time in reading because it is an internalised process. It doesn’t take much for a student to hold a book and look at the page. They are camouflaged in plain sight. It looks like they are reading so therefore they must be reading. 

With writing, I’d say that there are a number of things students can do:  

• Manipulate their handwriting - make it small, big or so hard to read.

• Detailed plans but very little writing  

• Slow writing

• Copy large chunks of a text out 

• Ask lots of questions 

• Writing really fast and being first to finish.  

Of course, there are many more things I could have included. Take the student who finishes first. Why do they finish first? Now, I have always assumed it was to please me. There’s me framing things around emotions. What if the student was finishing first to fit in with his / her perceived notion of normal? To camouflage themselves, they finish first because that signifies that he/she is competent in English. Look at me, I am not going to be picked last in the English team.  

Handwriting is another one. English teachers see lots of handwriting and lots of variations. I am always amazed when a student doesn’t heed my advice when I say they should make their writing clearer. Handwriting is camouflage. They’ve written clever ideas, but it is the teacher’s fault because they can’t read it.The problem is the teacher and not the student. Again, it looks like the student is competent in the classroom in front of their peers. 

I genuinely think we need to be talking about masking and camouflaging more in our subject. It is at the heart of a lot of problems we face and experience. Word soup in writing is a product of students thinking clever words can mask their work. If I use clever sounding words, then I will pass for clever in the subject. In fact, the best students don’t use those words. 

Writing is the biggest sign of ability in lots of subjects. It is where students are at their most vulnerable yet it is all too visible. That’s why they work on the ‘optics’ of things. They misbehave, because it avoids vulnerability. They do something to their writing so it looks like others. 

Rather than jumping to feelings first, maybe we should be thinking about masking and the psychology behind what students do and why they do it. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me and started reading non-fiction

 ‘When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put the ways of childhood behind me.’

Corrithians 13:11

Fiction is the domain of childhood, freedom and creativity. From an early age, we engage with stories. In fact, our childhood is one big storytelling event. There is story time every day. There is a bedtime story. There are stories, thanks to Disney and Pixar, that can be consumed in 90 minutes, allowing parents a break. 

Non-fiction is the domain of adulthood, responsibility, duty and compliance. The older we get the more we discover that our reading comprises reading for information and process rather than enjoyment. There is the mortgage application I have to read. There are the terms and conditions I have to read about the new washing machine I have bought. There is a letter from the council about how they are spending my council tax payment I have to read. 

If we are honest, schools have a real issue with non-fiction teaching. You can just see the yawns on people’s faces when dealing with non-fiction. Can’t I teach a poem? I think some teachers would be happy to spend a week on Alcatraz than prepare students for the non-fiction paper on the exams. On previous exam specs, there was a media element so the non-fiction reading text element was downplayed as teachers explored the use of imagery, headings and subheadings.  

The problem, for me, is to do with inference. We don’t see non-fiction in the same way we see fiction and that’s down to inference. From an early age, we build students to search for inferences in fiction texts. Why is the baby bear sad? Why is Goldilocks so tired? Why are Goldilock’s parents so neglectful? We channel students into this submissive role of fiction. You know this bit here; well, it means something else. By the time students leave primary school, they know how facial actions, physical actions, objects and setting can convey a level of meaning. They can help us understand a character’s thoughts, feelings, motives, relationships,dreams and fears. Can the same be said for non-fiction? What can students do with non-fiction?

In secondary school, we had a problem with non-fiction. The preference has always been about writing it rather than reading it, so rarely has it been about exploring texts. Usually, the reading of texts has been boiled down to finding facts and opinions or treating them as literary texts and searching for techniques. We’ve never really treated them with the same level of engagement as we do fiction texts. Even the non-fiction texts selected have a whiff of literature about them and most would fit in an Ian McEwan novel. The texts usually highlight how clever the writer is.  

Inference is a factor, I think ,that is missing from non-fiction. We don’t use inference to explore non-fiction texts. In fact, there is a lack of understanding behind non-fiction texts. They are purely seen in literal terms. They are not seen in terms of subtext, nuance and hidden meaning. Instead, they are read through literal glasses. Find fact 1. Good. Now, find fact 2. 

The problem with non-fiction is like real life. A person can say one thing and mean something entirely different. That dual meaning in non-fiction is what some of the best students pick up on and the weaker students totally miss. Students need to make inferences yet we don’t place inference at the forefront of non-fiction. 

For years, I have found the way we teach the writing of non-fiction dull, uninspiring and flat. That is largely the way that we view it in terms of ‘literal writing’. We don’t coach it in terms of building meaning with the use of hints, clues and suggestions of something else. We’ve become more focused on using a rhetorical device that sounds like an infection of the genitals than building meaning. Getting students to think purposefully behind non-fiction writing is key. Them being in the driver’s seat. Them understanding that they should imply meaning. That they should build inferences consciously and subconsciously through their writing. Creative writing is all about inference and non-fiction writing should be too. 

So, how can we start building students to make inferences in non-fiction? For a start, show them how inferences can be built. 

I like to show how subtly changes can shift the whole meaning. These are from the opening sentence of a letter. What is each one trying to suggest? How do they suggest it? 

[1] I am angry that you didn’t invite me to the party. 

[2] I am disappointed that you chose not to invite me to the party.

[3] Words cannot describe how I feel about not being invited to the party.  

I love talking about the difference between ‘angry’ and ‘disappointed’ and what they convey. I also like how the accusing ‘you chose’ holds a lot of blame and how the third one removes the other person entirely. 

Another task I use is to use a real example. What can we infer from each line about his mother’s cooking? 

This is not an occasional occurrence, a once-in-a-while hiccup in a busy mother’s day. 

My mother burns the toast as surely as the sun rises each morning. 

In fact, I doubt if she has ever made a round of toast in her life that failed to fill the kitchen with plumes of throat-catching smoke. 

Toast – Nigel Slater (autobiography) 

Hopefully, they will pick up some of these things. 

 

This is not an occasional occurrence, a once-in-a-while hiccup in a busy mother’s day. 

I am not surprised that my mother burnt the toast. 

My mother burns the toast as surely as the sun rises each morning. 

My mother always burns the toast. 

In fact, I doubt if she has ever made a round of toast in her life that failed to fill the kitchen with plumes of throat-catching smoke. 

My mother is a terrible cook. 

Toast – Nigel Slater (autobiography) 

The great thing about this little extract is there is another inference we can make which kind of contradicts what is being said: he clearly loves his mother deeply. The fact that this text works on several levels. Understanding the multiple levels is key. Focus on a literal sense and this is a text showing how bad she is as a mother. 

We can, and should, get students to build inferences into their non-fiction writing. Here is one I do it. I give the students a loose framework to work with and get them to focus on creating the inference rather than obsess on the writing style. 

NEWS REPORT – Teacher’s Mug Stolen 

The police arrived at the scene.  [They were not worried about the event] 

The headteacher refused to comment. [They thought the whole thing was silly] 

The stolen mug was blue.  [The mug wasn’t valuable but it meant a lot to the teacher]  

Like the Toast example, the language is being used to convey meaning beyond the literal meaning. We could say things like ‘The police added the crime to the bottom of their very long list of things to do that week’. All too often students would explicitly say something like the sentences in red. They’d happily build inferences around  a complex backstory in a short story yet in non-fiction it is all about stating everything. 

Inference is the bridge between most aspects in English. For me, it is a key component in all that we do. In reading, we are looking for inferences about content, characters, the reader and the writer. In writing, we are building inferences so people see them if they look carefully enough.  

Non-fiction needs to be viewed in the same way as we view fiction. It isn’t a separate thing with separate rules and approaches. It is the same. You need to make inferences in both types of text; we just need students to understand that. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris 

Can’t use a simile without using two

I detest purple prose. Nothing grates when you’ve read your fifteenth example of personification by the third sentence. Especially when the setting is full of people already. The problem is that students haven’t learnt about the versatility of a technique. They haven’t reached a stage of proficiency to use a technique in a variety of contexts and purposes. By the time students reach Year 7, they can spot similes and use them freely. In fact, most of the issue stems from stopping them using more than one. 

What are the main problems students have with similes? 

• Resorting to tired similes or cliches 

• Stacking similes on top of each other

• Extreme effects and over exaggeration - His anger was like a volcano going off. 

• Similes sitting alone without any further development 

• Lack of cohesion with the rest of the writing    

Recently I read an interesting simile in Ann Sei Lin’s ‘Rebel Skies’. 

‘Despite its name, the building was neither blue nor did it look anything like a peacock. It stood in the middle of a narrow street on the outskirts of Tomuri like a sagging cake. The raising blocks had cracked on one side so that the inn stood at a tilt, the doors were battered by the wind and the clay tiles on the roof slipped dangerously, splitting onto the ground…’ 

We can see how a simile can be constructed for impact very simply and it seems effortless. 

[1] The simile is used to change the mood. We know something isn’t right about ‘The Peacock’ but the simile identifies what makes it wrong. The simile is a pivot in the structure of the writing. 

[2] The simile itself contrasts with the original image we are presented with. The place is called ‘The Peacock’ and it would, for most of us, make narrative sense and provide an alternative avian simile. A plucked turkey. A dumpey cuckoo. A fat hen. Yet, we are given a simile related to food and not birds. 

[3] The simile is extended and clarified in the sentence after. The ‘sagging’ connects to the ‘cracked on one side’ and the ‘tilt’.  

For students, a simile is just a simile and that’s where the problem lies. They don’t see it as a structural choice. A pivot to change the mood. A cohesive device that connects elsewhere. A simile simply exists on its own and in isolation in a student’s mind. Instead we need students to see the impact and how like a hydra a simple simile can be. 

I think we need to do more on the structural position of a simile in a paragraph. Students throw similes like confetti into their writing so that they stick to everything and appear when you least expect them. They need to be used like an engagement proposal instead. Carefully measured ensuring that the moment is perfect. Of course, you can throw a simile wherever you want, but having a simile hold the structure together is much more effective. Better writers structure their writing around anchors. Why not make the anchor a simile? 

[1] A simile at the start 

Simile 

Sentence 1 

Sentence 2 

Sentence 3

Like a cold winter’s day, the classroom was lifeless and lacked any colour. Grey walls waited for work to be keenly stuck to them with staples, pins or blue-tac. The windows stared impassively at row and row of empty desks and chairs. Coldness slowly seeped in.  

[2] A simile in the middle 

Sentence 1 

Simile 

Sentence 2

Sentence 3 

The garden’s greeness boasted itself to the rest of the street. Bright, bulging flowers thrust themselves forward like an ageing actor fearful of being replaced by a much younger, and cheaper, model. They were in the autumn of their existence. The colours were not as colourful as they once were in spring. They were not as tall as they once were in the summer. Their time was close to the end, but they would not give up without some kind of fight. 

[3] A simile at the end

Sentence 1

Sentence 2

Sentence 3

Simile 

As the garage door opened, light gently woke up the room. Piles of long forgotten boxes and cartons slept silently, hoping not to be disturbed. Dust blanketed everything and anything it could. The room held its secret like a murder hides his intent behind a smile.    

Now I don’t think I will win any awards for writing these examples, but they serve to prove a point: how a simile can be used to structure writing and have an impact. Able students often use devices to structure their writing while other students simply throw in similes without thought on how they can aid meaning. Students need to see and learn the versatility of a device. Too often we focus on the construction and not the use of a device. The fact a student can use the device in the first place shouldn’t be a source of amazement. How a student uses the device should be. 

Of course, simile usage isn’t simply the domain of fiction. In fact, the use of simile to turn the flow of the discourse is common in non-fiction. A serious article can flip into pantomime with one simile. Where to put the simile is the real  skill.  Where should I put the simile  ‘like some inflated sausage made of more sinew and fat than meat’ to describe the supposedly returning Prime Minister?  

Thanks for reading, 

Xris

Cohesion in writing: Won’t anybody think about paragraph two?

 We, generally, spend an inordinate amount of time writing openings to texts. We are happy to analyse openings to texts. We are happy to get students to practice opening paragraphs. We are happy for students to experiment with how to start a speech. And, over the years, I’d say rarely is the problem in writing localised to the opening. I’d be bold to say that most students get it. They get that the opening should be interesting and engaging. Rarely do I read the opening to a story and go, ‘yawn’. Rarely do I read the opening to a piece of non-fiction writing and shout, ‘BORING!’. They get it. 

Most of the time, I read their texts and I am engaged. The problem comes after the opening. Yes, some openings are better than others and show confidence, tone and subtlety, but, for the most, they do the job. Signal intent. Tease the reader with something interesting. And, be a bit more interesting than a Geography essay. It is the paragraph after the introduction where the rot comes in. My reading flow crashes into the wall. The development of writing is a major problem for all teachers of writing. How do you get students to develop their writing? 

The relationship between the introduction and the next paragraph is really important, yet it is largely undervalued and underdeveloped. We are so happy that writing is happening that we forget the value of development. The planning stage is supposed to do a lot of lifting in writing. It is the point where students are supposed to structure the writing yet structuring writing happens during the writing. Mini decisions are made, when writing, that connect ideas and parts of the discourse all the time. I think we need to be more explicit about the micro decisions we make in writing. How can I connect this idea with what I said before? 

I have sung on numerous occasions about the beauty of a sonnet. It is the closest we get to the beauty of Mathematics. How the components link and connect is so important with a sonnet. That form, because it is so tight and small, forces cohesion. Rhyme scheme. Structure. Volta. Sestet. Octave. All work together to link and connect the whole piece. Fiction has a lot of things that build cohesion across paragraphs. A mystery. The sequence of events. Mood. Logic. That’s why the jar between the first paragraph and the second isn’t so bad with fiction writing. Students know that if I am writing about a character waking up in paragraph one then in paragraph two the logical thing will be to dress or feed the character. There’s a natural cohesion to story writing. Where the better students succeed is by building cohesion through subtle choices? 

Ideas for how students can build subtle cohesion across paragraphs in creative writing 

# Use of phrasing. Dickens excels at this. Having three or so words used in a variety of combinations to seed a cohesion across a text. The danger here is to use adjectives. A nice one to use is verbs. Associate a verb with a character and think about how you can use the verb again in a different context and combination. 

# A motif. Get students to think of a strong image and idea combination and look at how they can reiterate that in different ways. I use a crack as a powerful one. Students draw attention to visual cracks in their writing and they foreshadow the ending which explores a breakdown in a relationship. 

# Foreshadowing is one concept that students easily grasp when analysing a text but it is the one thing they don’t deal well with when writing stories. They are happy to write an introduction along the lines of ‘Today was the day my life was going to change’, but then that one piece of foreshadowing is then dropped for the rest of the writing until we get to the end, probably. I like verbal foreshadowing like that, but students need to plan for it. They need to structure their writing around the foreshadowing and not have it as a throwaway line. Think of how a student could build around these sentences. 

[1] I knew this day would come, but I didn't know it would be so terrible and life-changing. 

[2] Something small happened just then, but I wouldn’t know its significance until the tragedy. 

[3] I made a choice then which would change things forever. 

[4] She knew then what would happen, but why didn’t she do anything to stop it? 

# Light is such a natural cohesive device in writing. The movement of time is a default cohesive device for students. They love telling you how time has passed. Three minutes later. The next week. Light does it so much better. It shows the passing of time subtly and connects the writing together. The darkness in one paragraph links to the sun rising in the next. 

There’s just a few cohesive devices for creative writing. Nonfiction writing is a little more complex and I think we need to work with students on developing cohesion in their transactional writing. All too often, their writing consists of listing ideas rather than developing one idea. That’s because non-fiction, unless we use narrative elements, doesn’t have those natural cohesive elements. Instead, we have to work harder on building cohesive elements. The planned structure for this is so important. I tell students to focus on one really good idea. Then, work hard to convince me why that idea is so good. Their structure is based around the idea and doing something with the idea. The introduction is the stating of their viewpoint and their main idea, then we work around how to develop that idea. How can they develop their point? It’s a really hard thing to change in the minds of students. They automatically list rather than develop. For that reason, we look at a number of structural choices about what you can do with an idea. 

·       Pick an aspect of the idea and investigate it – Parents track our bedtime, our meals, our free time.

·       Give a hypothetical situation or scenario – Imagine parents being tracked.

·       Explore the end consequences of the issue - There will be no surprises. No surprise visits. No surprise presents. Everything becomes predictable.

·       Draw attention to the flaws or weaknesses – Phones are easily lost, forgotten or stolen.

·       Share the emotional impact – Freedom is precious, but parents are looking to rip that away from young people.

·       Share a history of the issue – Parents since the dawn of time have always wanted to know where their child is and what they are up to.

·       Define or give a clarification of something people might not know – Tracking means watching and following the movement of a person. 

Students then look at shaping an argument. For example, they could go ‘introduction - define - flaw - hypothetical’. The cohesive device is the idea and the argument is shaped around the idea. It is quite transformative when students get this understanding. There’s a shift in writing. Then, the practice writing becomes about developing and doing something with the idea rather than listening and repeating ideas.

For me, this term, I have been working on Q5 and getting students to work on that relationship between paragraph one and paragraph two. Instead of asking them to write an introduction, I have been practising how they move from paragraph one to paragraph two. I have been using the following as a quick starter. 

At the start, students just carried on the writing and tended to repeat the previous point. By about attempt number three, and after feedback from me, they started to get it. Practising the process really helped and I can see the impact in their latest assessments. Those micro decisions in writing have been identified and students are making decisions in their writing about how things connect and link. Thinking about what to do with an idea is much better than thinking of what next idea to include. Students are hung up on the amount of ideas when really they should be focusing on their best idea and developing that. 

So, if we are serious about developing writing, we need to be forgetting about introductions and looking at paragraph two. Paragraph two is where we see the skill and the level of writing. Writing will improve if we shift our focus a bit, because paragraph two shows us what a student can do in terms of structure and cohesion. Introductions are flashy, buy paragraph twos are clever. 

Thanks for reading, 

Xris