Teaching English ... does it work?

[roisin]

Leading on from another thread, I'm surprised how 'mechanically' writing is taught in the UK now. For instance ds1 did an exercise at school on descriptive writing as follows:

The alien flew through the galaxy.
The slimy alien flew through the galaxy.
The slimy, green alien flew through the galaxy.
The slimy, green alien zoomed through the galaxy.
The slimy, green alien zoomed quickly through the galaxy.
The slimy, green alien zoomed quickly through the galaxy on his mission to invade Earth.
The slimy, green alien zoomed quickly through the galaxy on his evil mission to invade Earth.

Well great, OK, it proves a point. But does it really work?

At our secondary school there is some fantastic English teaching, along these lines. Yet the children still mostly fail to put it into practice in their writing.

I make no claims to be a writer, and never will be, though I have done some editing. But this 'mechanical' approach to language drafting remains rather alien to me.

Ds1 (8) is a superb writer - absolutely stunning; but I think that's just partly a result of the vast amount of reading he does, and partly it's just a talent he has. I'm just not at all convinced by this analytical approach.

What do you think? Particularly the writers on here. How do you construct your writing? What do you do when re-drafting? What makes a good writer?

veru interesting question roisin. I teach 2ndary english too but am thinking of going into primary at the moment. although the technical nature of the ks2 curriculum is putting me off a bit. of course the ks3 curr can be just as technical but i feel as a secondary teacher you're your own boss to a certain extent and you can put these aspects into a context you feel happy with while still teaching the kids the curriculum.

I think you're absolutely spot on about the connection between reading and writing. You can do all the exercises you want but whether a child can take what they've learned and put it into practice UNAIDED is down to the child. If they see this sort of thing reproduced in the books they read they can recognise it, see it in context and use it in their own writing. I would say the key to 'good' writing, both technically and imaginatively is down to the reading the child does.

This worries me as well a bit - I've seen it increasingly at KS3 - the insistance that children read and analyse excerpts of texts in a greater quantity to actually reading a whole text and ENJOYING it for its own sake. I think this anayltical approach to reading can turn off lots of kids unless the teacher is really skilful.

scuse typos

This reminds me of the film - Dead Poets Society.

I was very surprised to read that some writers always used a Thesaurus when writing. Sylvia Platt for example. I imagined some magicial imaganative process that resulted in the written word and now my illusions are shattered.

Perhaps it is more mechanical than we think and the truely natural writers are rare indeed.

I would love to hear from the mn writers how they approach writing and re-drafting, and whether this sort of knowledge does or would help them in their crafting.