Why is there such a big emphasis on story writing?

[katalex]

Last year dd (who was in year 4) had to write a story for homework almost every single week for the entire year. She hates writing, especially creative writing, and refused to do it most weeks. There was also a big focus on story writing in class. I spoke to her teacher about it as I wondered why there was such a big emphasis on story writing as there must be other aspects of literacy that they could be working on at home. She told me that the curriculum would be changing and there wouldn't be so much of it when she goes into year 5. This pleased dd. However, we are 5 weeks into the new term and she has already been asked to write 3 stories for homework. I don't remember having to write many stories in secondary school. I would expect that essay writing is a more useful skill to teach them at this stage in order to prepare them for KS3.

Opposite problem here! Year 4 DD loves creative writing and complains they don't do enough of it!

(Slightly off topic, but the current GCSE English Language includes controlled assessments on creative writing. e.g. Write something inspired by a character of a poem you have studied).

Do the stories have to be creative, or could they draw from their own experiences?

DS sometimes makes up stories and other times he writes about things that happened to him but as a story.

There will be no more controlled assessments in GCSE soon but there will always as far as we know, creative writing as part of the exam.

My experience in two different schools is that they didn't teach anything resembling essay writing until Year 9 or even year 10. I don't think it was even mentioned in the previous Key Stage 3 curriculum, although that has now changed.

Then children get to GCSEs and have to write essays in October of year 10 that actually count toward their GCSE grade (controlled assessment). No wonder the poor children are stressed.

To make matters worse, the bias against using textbooks in schools means most children who don't read nonfiction voluntarily won't have any kind of mental model of what essay-style writing looks like.

The overemphasis on story writing, reading and analysis comes, I suspect, from letting English literature teachers and academics decide what the national curriculum for English should look like, back in the 80s. Also from 70s/80s obsession with creativity and imagination above all else, combined with a view in some quarters that academic style writing is elitist. I must admit, it makes me very cross! I have had to teach both my daughters how to write essays myself.

Lweiji - I think the stories can draw on personal experience. The first one they were asked to write was supposed to be set in a school. I was just curious to know why almost every week they have to write a story for homework rather than doing some other kinds of writing or literacy based activity.

The structure for a story and for an essay it's not that different. Both types need to have an introduction, development and conclusion. Only, for an essay they are supposed to do some research. It still needs some creativity, in that you are not supposed to just copy sentences from the sources. You are supposed to explain in your own words and make your own associations.
In the early years they still need a lot of help with research (I have a 9 year old).

I agree it is a problem if that is all they are doing.

What about Instructions, Persuasion etc?

It was the same at DSs primary. He has just gone to secondary where there is much less creative writing involved, and much more factual writing, he enjoys it much more.

How odd. I don't think I've ever set a story as homework. (My class' English homework tends to be spelling, reading and grammar.) Stories need to be planned, developed, drafted and redrafted, before the final version is eventually created. The entire process takes ages.
We cover one narrative and one non-fiction text type per term. The narrative will focus on a different aspect each time. For non-fiction texts, mine know that they usually need an introduction, middle section and conclusion. They are beginning to link sections more successfully and to develop and control how they structure their texts.

my guess is it would be lazy homework (from the non imaginative teacher's point of view not the child's)