Opening Doors to Quality Writing

Ideas for writing inspired by great writers for ages 10 to 13 (Opening Doors series)

Bob Cox

• Publisher: Crown House Publishing
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN: 9781785830143
• eBook ISBN: 9781785831263
• Topic: Education
• Subtopic: Education General

In the course of his educational consultancy work, Bob has seen many teachers successfully use the scope and depth which literature can offer to inspire high standards, mastery learning and, above all, a love of language in its many forms. Schools using the 'opening doors' strategies told Bob they led to:

More teacher empowerment and confidence.

More knowledge building for pupils and teachers.

A growing confidence with literature, including poetry.

Planning from the top becoming a norm.

Planning for mastery learning becoming a norm.

Improved comprehension skills.

Improved quality writing and associated excitement.

They also asked Bob for further examples of inspiring, quality texts, and more ways in which all abilities can access them. Bob was only too happy to oblige.

These 15 units of work cover poetry and prose: each unit provides exciting stimulus material, creative ideas for writing projects, and differentiation and support strategies, meaning all pupils can achieve the quality writing objectives. All the units should help teachers facilitate understanding of the challenging texts and maximise the huge potential for quality writing. Discover a multitude of ready-to-use ideas, inspired by classic literature and great writers' works, along with plenty of new strategies and advice.

All of the extracts and illustrations you will need to begin opening doors in your classroom are downloadable a link to the download web page is provided in the book.

Units include: (Click on the links below to view a collection of written work produced by school children aged 10 to 13 who are following the passages and exercises related to the texts included in this book)

Part 1: Opening doors to prose

1. Night Encounter - The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

2. Spooky Scientists! - The Phantom Coach by Amelia B. Edwards

3. The Strongest Looking Brute in Alaska - That Spot by Jack London

4. Mr Knickerbocker's Notes - Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving

5. The Portrait of Doom - Tess of the D'Urbervilles by Thomas Hardy

6. The Hell Hound - The Hound of the Baskervilles by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle

7. Sinister Spaces - Metamorphosis and The Castle by Franz Kafka

9. All in This House is Mossing Over - From 'Mementos' by Charlotte Bronte

10. Dancing the Skies - 'High Flight' by John Gillespie Magee, Jr

11. The Mystery of the Lonely Merman - 'The Forsaken Merman' by Matthew Arnold

12. Making Magic Talk - 'The Magnifying Glass' by Walter de la Mare

13. The Spirit in the Garden - 'A Garden at Night' by James Reeves

14. A Shropshire Lad - 'Blue Remembered Hills' by A. E. Housman

15. The Silver Heel - 'I Started Early - Took My Dog' by Emily Dickinson

The Opening Doors to Quality Writing series won the 2017 Education Resources Awards in the Educational Book Award category.

Judges' Comments: "Described as two gems which provide innovative approaches to exploring quality texts as stimuli for children's writing. Judges described The Opening Doors to Quality Writing series as an invaluable resource, particularly for non-specialist teachers. Excellent literary choices contained within very attractively produced books."

Opening Doors To Quality Writing: Ideas For Writing Inspired By Great Writers For Ages 6 To 9

Part 1

Opening doors to prose

Unit 1

Night Encounter

The Woman in White by Wilkie Collins

How well can you introduce a mystery story?

Access strategies

Wilkie Collins is often credited with writing the first mystery story, The Woman in White (1859). It’s easy to forget that, once upon a time, writing about a mystery was a new concept! The hero of the story, Walter Hartright, is a kind of detective and your pupils will be sampling the style of writing which influenced so many later authors to weave sensational plots around a sleuth. The story was incredibly popular in its own time, and there were even products like perfumes and clothing using the ‘Woman in White’ branding. Although the novel itself is long, encourage as many of your pupils as possible to try it because it is readable and eventful.

Try using a key image strategy to open up access to this famous mystery for all. Which images in this short extract from Chapter 4 stimulate the children’s curiosity the most? Why?

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[…] in one moment, every drop of blood in my body was brought to a stop by the touch of a hand laid lightly and suddenly on my shoulder from behind me.

I turned on the instant, with my fingers tightening round the handle of my stick.

There, in the middle of the broad, bright high-road – there, as if it had that moment sprung out of the earth or dropped from the heaven – stood the figure of a solitary Woman, dressed from head to foot in white garments, her face bent in grave inquiry on mine, her hand pointing to the dark cloud over London, as I faced her.

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Now, use an explore and explain learning pathway. The idea is that your pupils are building an understanding of how the mystery is set up. They must search for evidence in one group and then move groups to feed back to others. This keeps the pressure on to participate, listen and learn, rather than defer to the most proactive students.

After switching groups and deepening their learning, ask them to share selected ideas as a whole class and then add your own knowledge. Linking now with the ‘beyond the limit’ section on page 16 might be useful to incorporate prior learning and link reading.

Excellent responses will include:

The first person narrator’s fear is shared with us as he experiences it.

Phrases like ‘every drop of blood’ add detail to the emotional atmosphere and link mental with physical distress. The hands on the stick accentuate this.

The light touch on the shoulder adds to a sense of the unknown. It may not hurt but it prickles the senses.

A one line paragraph makes us read it like a still photograph.

The much longer paragraph, with the dashes marking off an echo of the narrator’s astonishment, finally gives us the view we have waited for.

A ‘solitary Woman’ is perhaps a surprise! Why is there a capital letter for ‘Woman’?

The white garments mark out a mystery and they stand out visually. What can white signify?

Why is the hand pointing at the dark cloud?

The questions mount …

Writing a taster draft now would exploit the deeper thinking and stimulate original writing. Ask your pupils to use some of the ideas they have learnt from Wilkie Collins in a brief passage. It could introduce a mysterious character in an appropriate setting. No sustained plot is needed at this point, just a taster of the feel of mystery. Drafts should be shared, explored and read out, with more advice given in a mini-plenary.

Bob says …

Do add your own reading experiences at this point. Often we can get so absorbed in spotting techniques that we forget it’s the overall power of character creation that endures. Discuss how your pupils feel about the figure in white, whether they have had spooky encounters or felt that sinister sense of the unknown. Which books or poems have the same kind of impact? Does TV or film do it in the same way? The best English lessons find space to explore and expl...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Acknowledgements
• Epigraph
• Introduction
• Part 1: Opening doors to prose
• Part 2: Opening doors to poetry
• Appendix: ‘Ice Paths: A Fetcham Tale’ by Bob Cox
• Glossary
• Bibliography
• Available Resources
• Copyright