…from foundational to secondary stage.
Hello all. Welcome to the 105th edition of TEPS Weekly!
Writing is a complex cognitive process. It requires strong reading comprehension, grammar, vocabulary, background knowledge and critical thinking. Different forms of writing – expressive, creative and expository – require specific skills to be taught and practised. This article is a summary of some of the basics of good writing – and in the near future, we will be launching a TEPS Course that goes into detail of how teachers can support students in their writing development.
To understand how to teach students expressive, creative or expository writing in school, we as educators need to first understand two broad aspects of writing:
Characteristics of good writing
Stages of skill development in writing
What are the characteristics of good writing?
Let’s begin by looking at a snippet of good writing, from Ray Bradbury’s Zero Hour. As you read, think about what characteristics of this writing make it an engaging read.
Broadly, the following characteristics make writing effective and engaging to read:
The writer’s background knowledge: Writing well requires thinking critically about a topic. For example, if just like Ray Bradbury, I want to write a science fiction story based on another planet, I need to have adequate knowledge about a variety of topics, right from current scientific innovations to what is possible in the future, about outer space and features of other planets, about climate change and agriculture, and about human emotions and behaviour, to begin with. And I need to be able to think critically about all of these topics to be able to create a new, believable world with compelling characters and an effective plot. Lack of background knowledge usually leads to writing that sounds unnatural and that does not keep the reader’s attention and interest. And so, good writing in school also begins with encouraging students to read more, to use the school library and to read a variety of genres and topics to build their background knowledge.
The writer’s individual voice: Each writer, with time and practice, develops their own individual voice. This individual voice is made up of certain grammatical structures that the writer is partial to, some words that they naturally use over and over, a particular sense of humour or a certain intensity, and certain quirks. This individual voice is what makes their writing unique and interesting. Today, a lot of writing we see online is generated by popular AI chatbots, and people are losing their individual voice and style as a result, and it is for this reason that we should actively discourage the use of AI for writing by students. And more importantly, insisting that students follow a particular structure with definite sentence types, fixed words, and so on is also not conducive to them developing their own voice.
Effective use of genre-specific features: Each genre has its own features. For example, folktales are usually set in the past, have good and evil characters, and end with the evil character learning a lesson. Mystery stories work best when they begin with a crisis, followed by a series of crises as part of the rising action, the climax and the falling action. Good writing makes effective use of these features. However, in school we often ask students to write essays that either talk about a past event or imagine a new event. To develop good writing, it is important to teach students about different genres of writing and give them ample opportunities to write, receive feedback and revise their writing.
A clear understanding of the audience: Knowing the interests of your readers leads to better writing. At the very basic level, understanding general age-specific interests is important. For example, most teenagers won’t enjoy reading a story based on geo-political issues (mainly due to lack of background knowledge) but will gravitate towards fantasy, crime fiction and romance. At a more nuanced level, understanding what kind of character development or what intensity of plot detail your audience expects makes for better writing. In school, the audience for students’ writing is mostly just the teacher – so ensuring that, for example, grade 8 students get opportunities to write fairytales for grade 1 students is a useful way of understanding audiences.
A clear purpose for writing: Knowing what you want your audience to feel and experience as they read is equally important. Do you want them to feel joy? Anger? Frustration? Sadness? Hope? Your plot structure, your grammatical structures and your choice of vocabulary all depend on your purpose. For example, train-of-consciousness writing using words of despair more effectively contributes to a feeling of fear and hopelessness in readers. In school, students have only one purpose for writing – to earn marks. However, once we start encouraging them to write for different audiences, writing for different purposes should follow. Even if the genre remains the same, like realistic fiction, having them change their purpose will lead to a change of style, tone, grammatical structure and vocabulary.
The right vocabulary for the audience and purpose: Grade 1 students might really enjoy reading stories about mean, fierce tigers. However, in Grade 8, students enjoy more nuance – they might want to read about the vengeful yet patient tiger and not so much about the mean, fierce one. Vocabulary choice adds or takes away from the depth of characters, their emotions and actions, from the intensity of the events and the weight of the settings. The audience and purpose dictate the choice of vocabulary in writing. Encouraging students to look up similar stories by popular authors, articles online or even generate word lists using AI chatbots to create vocabulary banks for different genres, audiences and purposes is a good first step.
The right grammatical structures for the audience and purpose: A Grade 2 student will enjoy reading a story with simple sentences, limited conjunctions and clauses, and some bit of repetition. A Grade 9 student will be thoroughly bored by such a story and would prefer one with complex and compound-complex sentences of varying lengths, with a variety of phrases and clauses. The purpose of the text also determines its grammatical structures – an informational text requires complete sentences, while dialogues in fiction stories sound artificial and forced when complete sentences are used, because that is not how we talk in daily life. While correct grammar is important, it is more important to communicate well for our audience and purpose – and students should not be penalised for intentionally breaking a few grammatical rules in such cases.
Writing free of spelling and grammatical errors: Writing that is riddled with spelling mistakes and grammatical errors is difficult to read and understand. Teachers must build in students the habit of proofreading their own writing and fixing any mistakes that make writing difficult to read.
What are the stages of skill development in writing?
To understand how skills of creative, expressive and expository writing broadly develop from the foundational to the secondary stage of school, let’s refer to a single picture.
Grades 1-3
Surface-level observation:
Identifying and naming objects, characters and actions in the picture (flowers, children playing, alien, spaceship).
Writing basic descriptions of what they see without much interpretation.
“There are flowers and a lake. The alien is hiding behind a tree. The kids are playing with toys.”
Grades 4-6
Emerging inference and emotion:
Making guesses about the characters’ feelings or intentions (the alien is hiding because it’s scared or curious).
Starting to describe cause-effect relationships (why the spaceship might have crashed).
Writing longer sentences with more descriptive details.
“The alien looks nervous as it hides behind the tree, maybe because it doesn't want the children to see it. The children are laughing and playing near the lake, so they haven’t noticed the spaceship yet.”
Grades 7-9
Complex storytelling and perspective:
Writing structured stories with a beginning, middle and end.
Developing motivations or backstories for the characters (why the alien landed or how the spaceship crashed).
Using figurative language and dialogue to enhance the writing.
“As the spaceship lay hidden near the bushes, the alien peered cautiously from behind the tree. It had never seen children before and wasn’t sure if they were friendly. Meanwhile, the kids were too busy laughing and chasing butterflies to notice the unusual visitor. Would they find the spaceship and uncover its secrets?”
Grades 10-12
Critical analysis and theme exploration:
Analysing the deeper meaning or symbolic elements in the picture (the alien as a symbol of the unknown or outsider).
Writing with an awareness of tone, voice and intended audience.
Exploring themes like curiosity, fear of the unknown or the innocence of childhood.
“The image juxtaposes the innocence of childhood with the alien—a symbol of the unfamiliar. The alien, cautiously hiding, reflects the fear or curiosity we feel when encountering the unknown. Meanwhile, the children, blissfully unaware of its presence, remind us of the carefree exploration of youth. The crashed spaceship subtly suggests a deeper narrative, one of adventure gone awry or unexpected journeys.”
We as educators must keep this developmental trajectory in mind and push our students to meet these milestones, along with incorporating the features of good writing at an age- and grade-appropriate level.
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Edition: 4.12
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