What's all this then?


I tweet too much. So I needed somewhere else to start storing all the words. This is it. Think of it as the external hard drive for my thoughts.

I don't have an obesssion, a dream, a fixation or a hook, so don't be expecting a focus here. It's like great big lumps of my twitterings. You may see teaching stuff, rants, maternal anxiety and occasional sojourns away from reality.

Anyway, I like a nice chat so we should talk. By we, I of course mean me...

Friday 25 March 2011

Big Writing Follow Up Session: in which I do my corrections

This post is supplementary to my "Big Rant about Big Writing" Post, which you may read here.


Ros Wilson has expressed concerns about my post and I want to address them here. She was unable to post her comments on my blog post personally.


Firstly, let me say that I am appreciative of Ros Wilson's offer of a Big Writing training session and of her interest in my thoughts. I was surprised too to be contacted by her via a twitter mention. I'll reproduce our brief conversation here so I can explain what I find positive about it, and where my worries still lie:



rosBIGWRITING Ros Wilson
@bird42 Tried to reply on your blog Bird, but think I failed. Found your tirade on Big W interesting but superficial and ill informed. Ros
bird42 beccy
.@rosBIGWRITING I'm sorry you couldn't reply, I'll check the settings. I agree it wasn't in depth, but which bits did you find ill informed?
rosBIGWRITING Ros Wilson
@bird42 VCOP is a piecemeal way of teaching writing. It sticky tapes quick fixes over limited teaching... Stated as a fact, so wrong.
rosBIGWRITING Ros Wilson
@bird42 ... as are so many other statements. Would like to 'talk' more effectively than this / invite you on a day. Ros@andrelleducation.com
bird42 beccy
.@rosBIGWRITING thank you, I appreciate the generosity of yr offer. I have had Big Writing training, however & worked in BigW schools.
bird42 beccy
.@rosBIGWRITING if you have time, it would be good if you could comment on the blog itself re: anything you see that is factually incorrect
rosBIGWRITING Ros Wilson
@bird42 suggesting that you can only write when the moon is in the seventh house and Venus is aligned with Mars is not going to help. Sorry?
rosBIGWRITING Ros Wilson
@bird42 "Keep writing real, give it a purpose, give it an audience." You obviously know nothing about what I, personally, say Bird.
rosBIGWRITING Ros Wilson
@bird42 You quote a Forum comment that must be 2 years old at least - we have had no students for 2 years. If you had been trained by...
rosBIGWRITING Ros Wilson  
@bird42 ... an Andrell consultant or myself you would know we guarantee our work and if it did not work for you you could come back to us...

bird42 beccy
.@rosBIGWRITING Meanwhile, I will post an addendum expressing your concerns & restating that my view of BW is personal opinion.
rosBIGWRITING Ros Wilson
@bird42 ...we work on with you free until you get it 'right'. We abhor stulted 'purple prose', which you may see in the very early...
rosBIGWRITING Ros Wilson
@bird42 ...'emergent' phases of BW, but you find the same in early use of features of text type and many other forms of early learning.
rosBIGWRITING Ros Wilson
@bird42 Please don't worry about doing that, I am sure readers would realise that. I would rather 'talk' in a better forum...
rosBIGWRITING Ros Wilson
@bird42 ...where I can explain your misunderstandings properly. Take care, Ros

This reassures me that Andrell are committed to providing value for money, which is always one of my worries about buying into private companies in the public sector.

I wonder also whether the issues I identify with Big Writing are not due to the theory but to problems in the dissemination of the original ideas. Obviously, Andrell cannot be responsible for the practice of each individual teacher using Big Writing. However, I am still concerned that this is partly due to the absence of a solid base of research underlying Big Writing. Maybe more thorough research would identify potential problems in delivery without having to rely on working with individual teachers until they get it "right".

I'm glad that Ros Wilson seeks to explain misunderstandings, but in my case I feel they are more differences of opinion.

In Education currently, there is a lot of debate around personalised learning. We accept that children have different needs and ways of learning and that we should consider giving them increased responsibility for that learning in order to support their development and help them become more active participants in school. I think the same is obviously true for adults, even teachers. We learn in different ways too, and we teach in different ways. If I was to personalise my own learning journey as a teacher, I would not take on board Big Writing because it does not work for me. I don't think any extra training would change that. I like to work in a different way. As long as I teach the objectives in the Primary Strategy, in a way that is enjoyable and meets the needs of my class, then I'm ok with that. And so is Ofsted. Big Writing is not compulsory and doesn't come from the Department of Education.

Regarding the oddities in children's writing that Ros Wilson identifies as "emergent Big Writing", I still feel that they are qualitatively different from children's naturally emergent writing. We all know how excited children get about new words, new writing tools; like that period in Year 2 when their work is liberally sprinkled with exclamation marks. None of that exuberance feels as clunky and bolted on as Big Writing errors. The hundreds of SATs papers I have marked demonstrated a difference between VCOP and non VCOP schools. To generalise, the difference is in the flow of the work, the development of an individual writer's voice and in lively and entertaining content; all of which come as part of less prescriptive writing methods.

These are of course my opinions. I'm glad to not be alone in them, and have enjoyed some supportive chats with many on twitter who agree. I know lots of people disagree. Hurrah for diversity amongst teachers, let's celebrate that, and independent opinion and giving our children the varied and passionate teaching they deserve.

(And Ros Wilson clearly isn't a fan of Hair...)

9 comments:

  1. Hi. I am a primary school teacher with a Masters from Institute of Education and an English Language and Literature degree from Oxford University. My take on Big Writing is the same as yours. Good of Ros to offer to clear up your 'misunderstandings' but, to my mind, you have understood the limitations of "Big" (an amusing title for it)Writing exceedingly well and I thought you might welcome a bit of solidarity! A little worrying that Ros does not seem to welcome healthy debate. Keep up the good work!

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  2. Hi. I am a primary school teacher with a Masters from Institute of Education and an English Language and Literature degree from Oxford University. My take on Big Writing is the same as yours. Good of Ros to offer to clear up your 'misunderstandings' but, to my mind, you have understood the limitations of "Big" (an amusing title for it)Writing exceedingly well and I thought you might welcome a bit of solidarity! A little worrying that Ros does not seem to welcome healthy debate. Keep up the good work!

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  3. Thank you! I really do appreciate the solidarity. I think we have a responsibility to our schools to consider our teaching very carefully. To me, that includes questioning what we are asked to accept and establishing the rationale behind any new drive whilst asking whether it works for us.

    When I spoke to my Head, she admitted she had always been puzzled as to the where Big Writing came from. My school is now in the process of applying a DRINK ME potion to our teaching of writing.

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  4. Firstly, I would like to say that I think all of your articles are amazing.

    I am currently a fourth year Primary Ed student, producing my dissertation on Big Write. I have seen it being taught in schools less than enthusiastically, with both teachers and students wondering why they even bother. This, unfortunately has has the same result as the schools that I've been in that have taught it as if it were gospel.

    I think that BW seems to thankfully, be a fading concept. Lets hope the natural flow of a child's writing can be restored soon[shout stick]

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  5. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  6. Scott- thank you very much for your kind comments.

    It's interesting to hear from someone studying Big Writing, and personally I'm glad to hear that it seems to be an idea that's less for our time. We've stopped all Big Writing in our school. We're at that tricky point of moving from one teaching style to another, but I think we're getting somewhere. Perhaps if we'd been less quick to embrace BW so completely, this shift would be easier.

    I've not published your second comment, as it had your email address in it, and I wouldn't want you to get any spam (or, heaven forfend, offers of training...) as a result of posting here.

    I'm afraid I do post anonymously, as teaching's a funny old game and expressing your views online can get you into trouble (see above...). I wouldn't want my employers to be criticised in any way as a result of my personal views. I don't mind you quoting me with some creativity in sourcing, "an ordinary teacher writing as birdonthesteeple", for example. I'm not an academic, so my name won't mean very much anyway, I'm afraid. I hope this doesn't seem unhelpful. And of course, all of Ros Wilson's comments are direct quotes via her twitter feed, the name of which I forget.

    Good luck with your studies and at the good ol' chalkface at the end of them.

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  7. It was interesting to read your blog and Ros's responses. what lets the cat out of the bag is that she doesn't say anything still on the theoretical base or research on BW. I am from India - working in education for the last 30 years - used to follow UK elementary education and research till the 90's - and collected some pretty good stuff - was a bit sad witht he centralisation of the National Curriculum in the 80's - last twenty years we in India have also been facing fads like these through ill equipped consultants being invited through bids by our governments - apalled to see that similar consultants without accountability are gaining ground.
    Anjali

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    1. Yes, there is certainly a lack of Evidence Cat in the bag labelled "research". I agree that it is appalling to see poorly researched theory being acted on in schools. And that money is spent on it. Much as I deplore our current UK government's cuts in Education funding, I hope that it makes schools think very carefully about where they spend their money, and on which consultants.

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  8. Very interesting blog, and I agree with you views.I'd be interested to hear your views on Ruth Misken's various Literacy initiatives.

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