If you’ve ever ended a primary writing lesson staring at a sea of confused faces – or worse, unreadable scrawls of random words – you’re not alone.
Teaching writing in primary school is hard work.
Not because our learners aren’t capable, but because writing is complex. It asks children to do so much, all at once. Think about it: when we ask a child to “write a story”, what we’re really asking is for them to…
- Understand the tone of a genre they’ve probably never read enough of.
- Use correct grammar, punctuation, and sentence structure while trying to be creative.
- Generate ideas that fit together logically and follow a narrative arc.
- Spell words correctly, form letters neatly, and remember their capital letters and full stops.
- Somehow make it all… make sense.
It’s like learning to drive while being instructed in a foreign language, down roads you have never been down before. It’s actually not surprising some kids just give up.
Too often, what we get back is a collection of fragments. Ideas with no structure. Sentences that start well but trail off. Characters that appear out of nowhere and disappear just as fast. It’s not for lack of effort – it’s because writing feels overwhelming when there’s no clear scaffold.
I used to find teaching writing SO frustrating. I could not get my head around how to help my learners manage all of these mechanics of writing. But then I discovered the Talk 4 Writing Model.
A New Approach: Guiding Children Through the Writing Process
Here’s the good news: it doesn’t have to be this way. What if your writing unit could walk both you and your learners through the entire story-writing process, from start to finish – with support, structure, and even a little fun?
That’s exactly what this 15-lesson writing unit is designed to do.
Using the trusted Talk for Writing model, this unit focuses on helping learners create their own ‘Losing Story’ – a tale in which a character loses something special, searches for it, and finally finds it again.
Each lesson is crafted to:
✅ Demystify genre structure with a model text
✅ Build sentence-level confidence with short, focused activities
✅ Model every step of the writing process visually and collaboratively
✅ Give learners time to internalise, imitate, and innovate
✅ Finish with a full, independent piece of writing they’ll be proud of
Why It Works
Instead of throwing children into the deep end with a vague “write a story”, this unit begins with exploration and builds up skill by skill. It taps into storytelling through speaking and listening before ever putting pen to paper. And it celebrates small wins along the way because writing confidence is just as important as writing skill.
The best part? It’s not just the learners who grow in confidence. With each stage mapped out, clear modelling tips, and built-in scaffolds like story maps and toolkits, teaching writing becomes so much easier for you too.
Introducing: Stevie the Lost Lion – A 15-Lesson Story Writing Unit
This unit will help your class:
🦁 Learn a model ‘Losing Story’ text from start to finish
🛠 Identify and practise using key grammar tools (like adjectives, verbs, and adverbs)
🎨 Innovate and create their own version using guided planning
📝 Write a complete, original story with a strong beginning, middle, and end
🎉 Reflect on their progress from first draft (Cold Piece) to final story (Hot Piece)
Whether you’ve felt stuck teaching writing or just want a resource that works, this is it.
So if you’re ready to move from chaos to clarity, confusion to creativity, and frustration to flourishing writers – check out the full unit today.
👉 Available now: Stevie the Lost Lion – Writing a Losing Story Unit
By David Wright | Mr Wright Teaching
Let this be the writing unit that changes everything about how you teach writing.
Mr Wright Teaching 
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