Research School Network: Modelling writing across the curriculum How can teachers of all subjects improve the writing of their students?


Modelling writing across the curriculum

How can teachers of all subjects improve the writing of their students?

by Durrington Research School
on the

By Andy Tharby

Over the last couple of years, Barak Rosenshine’s paper Principles of Instruction’ has become very popular in schools. It provides simple, actionable research-based principles that underpin effective teaching and its ubiquity is one of the reasons that schools and teachers have recently become interested in how to use modelling strategies in the classroom. The paper suggests that providing students with models and worked examples can help them learn to solve problems faster and that successful teachers spend more time guiding students’ practice of new material. Similarly, many teachers have found the simple I, we, you approach to modelling - I do it, we do it, you do it – as a helpful way of carefully scaffolding students’ learning over a lesson or series of lessons.

In this post we shall turn our attention towards the most effective ways to model written texts across the curriculum. The development of extended writing skills has become an increasing priority in secondary schools, fuelled perhaps by the fact that GCSE exams now require longer written responses than ever before, even in traditionally practical subjects like PE and DT.

What does the evidence say?

We recommend that all teachers put aside an hour or so to read the EEF’s recent guidance report on Improving Literacy in Secondary Schools’. The sections on writing, which recommend the following advice, are particularly useful:

Disciplinary Literacy. Literacy skills (reading, writing and other forms of communication) are general and subject-specific. Each subject has its own unique language, ways of knowing, doing and communicating’ (20). This means that teaching writing should be seen as the priority of all teachers, not just English teachers.

Breaking it down. The act of writing places a heavy burden on the working-memory as it involves the interaction between many complex processes and pieces of information. A golden rule is to break down the teaching of writing into smaller, more manageable parts. These include word-level, sentence-level and whole-text level strategies as well as strategies for planning, monitoring and reviewing writing.

Removing assistance gradually over time. Students should be supported to become increasingly independent. Over time, writing cycles (planning, drafting and editing) should become longer. The report points out that while not every writing task will require every step in the cycle, an important part of teaching writing is ensuring that students understand that expert writers in any subject follow multiple steps to create high quality work’ (21).

Practical tips


With this evidence in mind, what could teachers at the chalk face do differently to improve the way they model written texts?

Make writing expectations clear. Too often, teachers spend a decent quantity of time introducing the new content but then immediately ask the class to perform a written task without any guidance whatsoever. At the very least, the teacher needs to make writing expectations explicit for every task.

Use a visualiser. There is no hard evidence to suggest that visualisers are more effective than any other method of presentation. Anecdotally however, many teachers find them an invaluable tool for clearly modelling a written task at the front of the class. A live projection on a screen allows students to see their teacher write naturally with pen and paper which is a much harder process to replicate when writing directly onto a board instead.

Model planning, monitoring and evaluation strategies. A common misconception about modelling is that it is the same as demonstration. Effective modelling should take students through all the metacognitive processes involved in writing, not just the act of writing itself. Often these planning, modelling and evaluation strategies should be taught and practised separately before they are combined into longer texts.

Consider working memory constraints. Consider carefully how much new information students are expected to integrate simultaneously. Think of it from a student’s perspective. If your teacher is writing down and narrating a text that you are transcribing, while simultaneously expecting you to listen to him and copy down what he is writing, you are very likely to suffer cognitive overload – especially if your teacher is also pausing from time-to-time to speak aloud’ his metacognitive thought processes! To mitigate this problem, some teachers undertake silent modelling: they write the full text in silence while the class watch and discuss their decision processes with the class only after they have finished.

Teach subject specific grammar. The modelling process is the perfect opportunity to discuss subject specific grammar and language choices. An English literature teacher, for instance, might use the modelling process as an opportunity to stress the role of tentative language (possibly, hints at) and modal verbs (may, might, could) in the subject.

Contextualise Tier 2 and 3 vocabulary. If you use topic-based vocabulary lists, it is important to ensure that you use modelling as an opportunity to show these words in context and to explore possible inflections – for example, when and where to use respiration or respire in biology writing.

Highlight common mistakes, misconceptions and areas for development. For example, if you know that your students overuse the word also’ in their writing, then use the modelling time as an opportunity to teach alternatives.

Deliberate mistakes. It can also be worthwhile to include deliberate mistakes to see whether students notice them or not (especially common subject-specific vocabulary or grammar mistakes). This helps to model the way that expert writers meticulously monitor their work.

Build time into the curriculum. A priority for leaders is ensuring that modelling and the teaching of subject-specific metacognitive strategies is consistent and effective within a department. Ultimately, time should be specifically set aside for teaching these strategies and these opportunities should be made explicit in long-term planning documents.

Subject-wide consistency. Subject teams need to work collaboratively to choose and develop the writing strategies they will teach. To maintain fidelity, subject leaders should ensure that training, support and feedback is available for all members of the team. A lack of consistency often leads to confusion among students – especially those who struggle with literacy – as they move from teacher to teacher within the subject department over their time at the school. A useful approach is to use a subject meeting as an opportunity to introduce a new writing strategy to the whole department. This can be modelled under a visualiser at the meeting, leading to teachers practising the same approach with their students in their own lessons.

In all, when thinking about how to model subject-specific writing two overlapping questions should be considered: what are the strategies and techniques that require instruction in this subject, and how do we model these effectively and consistently?

If you are interested in working with Durrington Research School to further developing your understanding of disciplinary literacy and/​or effective strategies for modelling, please contact us through this website.

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