We are learning to think like authors

This week Year 5 students undertook a 'big write' exercise. ‘Big Write’ is just one of many writing sessions in the week- usually in the second half of the week. It’s a special start/stop piece of writing, where the students ‘show off’, take risks and celebrate all the skills they have been learning from the English that week. It has a special atmosphere to promote calm and creative writers and encourages students to reflect on their learning and how they can improve.

Our learning intention in Writing at the moment is ‘to think like authors’. We know that a crucial learning power that good authors must develop is reflectiveness.

Upon completing the big writing task for the week (writing a persuasive text), students spent time reflecting on how they went. They assessed themselves using a rubric (much like a checklist) and came up with two stars and a wish. We know that self-reflection is one key element of reflective thinking but we wanted to take it further; Students then shared their writing with a trusted peer. Students shared feedback with one another and then spent some more time reflecting on their writing, distilling the feedback they’d been given and creating a writing learning goal.