At Wilmington Academy, extended writing has become a primary focus across all subject areas, as Wilmington Academy recognises that every teacher is a teacher of writing. It is our goal to improve the quality of writing produced by students, as well as, enhance their writing resilience. At Wilmington Academy we understand that crafting effective writing is a skill that needs to be taught and modelled. Students will explore the different steps to improve their quality of writing such as planning, deconstruction/construction, drafting, evaluating, editing and proofreading.
There is no doubt that the quality of extended writing relies on the students’ subject knowledge and academic vocabulary. Students will be explicitly taught academic vocabulary each module. At the end of each module, in each subject assessment, students will be provided with the ‘key terminology’ to include in their extended writing responses to allow teachers the opportunity to discover if their students both understand the academic vocabulary and can use subject specific terminology in context. In both lessons and form sessions, students will be encouraged to use their Wilmington Academy ‘Cheat Sheet’ which they keep in their blazer pocket to support their use of ambitious vocabulary and conjunctions.
Once a module, students will have an extended writing form session where they will explore an academic article, to build their cultural capital, and respond using the extended writing strategies in our programme.
Some of the key strategies for Extended Writing at Wilmington Academy are:
- Take a uniform approach to encourage students how to identify the command word of each question (BUG)
- Identify and explicitly teach academic vocabulary each module (adapted assessments)
- Explicitly teach and utilise the 4-step prep. for Extended Writing
- Take a uniform approach using PEEL paragraphs
- Provide opportunities for students to complete extended writing in lessons
- Complete the modular form activity for all year groups