If you’re anything like me when I first started, teaching writing felt like poking my eyeballs with the blunt end of a HB pencil. No matter what I tried, my kids just didn’t get it. Asking them to write a story was like teaching a seven-year-old to drive—in another language.
We’d spend weeks on a simple unit, only for them to churn out random phrases barely linked to the task. Once, during a newspaper report unit, half my class ended up writing about Usain Bolt living “happily ever after” after winning Olympic gold 🤦🏻♂️
Everything changed when I discovered Talk for Writing. At first it sounded too simple: If they can’t say it, they can’t write it. If they don’t see you write it, they won’t know how to. But it worked. Writing has gone from being my most painful lesson to my absolute favourite. Prep time halved. Kids got it. And all it took were some simple strategies.
Here are my top ones:
1. Use and Internalise a Model Text
“If they can talk the talk, they can write the write.”
Find a model text that exaggerates the skills you’re focusing on. Then teach it by heart with actions and a text map. It sounds mad, but within 20 minutes your class can memorise a text – and in the process absorb its tone, structure, and vocabulary.
By doing this, you are literally putting the structure, tone and vocabulary of the genre into your learners’ heads – making your life a heck of a lot easier!
Check out one of my FREE model texts here
2. Agree on Success Criteria WITH your class
We call this co-constructing the Toolkit: two or three key skills for the unit, no more. Forget trying to teach everything at once. Instead, focus on the three key writing skills for that genre (e.g. adjectives, openers, and adverbs.) The key here is having your class decide what they think makes the Model Text so good and together construct a ‘Toolkit’ (Success Criteria) of which skills you will all focus on.
3. Model the Writing Process
This was probably the biggest shift for me. Don’t rely on your pre-made slides. I often don’t even use slides! Instead, grab a flip chart and model your writing process live with the kids. Talk through your thinking: why you’re choosing certain words, how you fix mistakes, when you change your mind. Let kids see the messy, real process.
4. Innovate Together
Once your class have internalised the text, this is where you get to have a whole lot of fun! Shared writing is key here—scribble their wild ideas onto the flip chart while keeping the agreed structure and modelling the writing process with them. Kids love this stage because all of a sudden you have given them a framework to hang all their fantastic ideas onto.
5. Don’t Let Facts Get in the Way of a Great Report
When teaching non-fiction, start with something mythical or made up—like this information report on the Gruffalo. Don’t get distracted by “getting the facts right.” I made this mistake so many times. Instead, focus on the structure, tone and vocabulary and give them the freedom to use their imagination to come up with the ‘facts’. Once the understanding of the genre is embedded, then move to using real-life topics.
6. Harness Peer Feedback
Peer feedback is gold. Kids are more motivated by their friends’ comments than by mine. When their best mate says, “I loved how you used that opener” or “Could you add an adverb?” – their confidence soars and their motivation to improve goes through the roof.
Whose opinion do they care more about? Their teacher? Or their best mate? Harness that desire to impress their mates with peer feedback.
I hope this helps you as much as it has helped me. Teaching writing for me no longer feels like torture. With these strategies, it’s creative, structured, and well…fun.
By David Wright | Mr Wright Teaching
Mr Wright Teaching 
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