Writing for a purpose – Why the reader matters from day one
Writing for meaning and purpose requires more than syntactical and grammatical accuracy; pupils must be aware of their audience, argue Penny Slater and Ellen Counter…
- by Penny Slater & Ellen Counter
- Partnership lead and interim deputy lead adviser for primary English
The word tally within the new Writing Framework is telling. Terms like ‘sentence construction’ appear with striking frequency, while words such as ‘effect’, ‘reader’, and ‘purpose’ are far less prominent.
This imbalance could lead practitioners to crudely divide the curriculum as follows: KS1 becomes the time for transcription, and KS2 the time for composition.
But writing doesn’t work like that. Children don’t suddenly become composers at age seven. They need to be immersed in meaningful writing experiences from the start – experiences that connect the mechanics of writing with its communicative power.
Yes, accurate sentence construction matters. But accuracy for its own sake is not the goal. Writing should be purposeful, contextual, and reader-aware.
If we’re not careful, we’ll find ourselves training children to write like robots; in other words, technically correct but devoid of voice, intent, or connection.
Moreover, KS2 teachers will be left to pick up the pieces, having to retrain their pupils to see writing as a meaning-making process that should affect the reader through its messaging, rather than simply impress the marker through its technical accuracy.
Interpretation is key
This is not a call to abandon the framework. Far from it. It offers valuable guidance and a much-needed spotlight on the building blocks of writing.
But we must implement it with nuance. Subject leaders, senior leaders, and classroom practitioners alike need to ask:
- What is the purpose of this activity?
- How does it help children become better communicators?
- Are we teaching writing as a craft, or merely as a set of rules?
With thoughtful implementation, the Writing Framework can help us raise standards and close gaps. But we must learn from the past.
We must ensure that our interpretation of the guidance does not lead to unintended consequences, where writing becomes a mechanical exercise rather than a meaningful act.
Let’s keep the reader at the heart of the writing process. Let’s ensure that every sentence constructed is part of a larger whole: an idea, a story, a message worth sharing.
Practicalities of writing for a purpose
In order to help pupils structure their writing for meaning and purpose, try the following activities…
Choose a reader first
We can enhance children’s motivation through authentic experiences of sharing their writing with a real person or people – perhaps someone they know in their family or wider community.
Without an audience or reader, children may consider a task to be low worth if they think they are only ‘playing’ at being a writer and that nobody – other than their teacher – will value their efforts.
Ensure your pupils have an authentic readership in mind for their writing, and that they know with whom it will be shared.
If you can encourage them to picture this reader engaging with their words at the point of writing, their compositions will become more authentic, engaging and meaningful.
Read the room
Support pupils to recognise the function that grammar and vocabulary play in the readers’ experience, linking all language choices back to the intended effect.
You can build working walls and success criteria collaboratively with pupils, remembering to constantly refer back to the audience and purpose for the writing.
For example, if you’re writing a persuasive piece, you might list some techniques together as a class, first. Are the children trying to persuade a friend? An older family member? Or a stranger?
How might they use approaches such as hyperbole, emotive language, and facts and figures to appeal to the reader they have in mind?
The power of proofreading
Sometimes a seeming lack of understanding of how to write grammatically correct sentences results from not knowing how to proofread.
A handy technique, which could be taught to children in KS1 upwards, is to ask them, “How does your reader know where one idea ends and the next begins?” and then teach them the ‘Guess What?’ strategy from Jennifer Serravallo’s The Writing Strategies Book:
- Say “Guess what?” then read your sentence aloud.
- Does your sentence make sense as an answer to “Guess what?”?
- If not, try to rephrase it so that it makes sense.
- Reread it now that the sentence has been changed.
- Check it again – what do you say first?
- What does your reader need now that this idea has finished?
Not only does this approach provide children with a useful strategy for evaluating the completeness of their sentence construction, but it also reminds the writer to consider the reader in the writing composition process.
Moreover, it reminds pupils that the purpose of honing accuracy is to ensure that a reader can make meaning from the text.
In turn, this helps to prevent the unintended messaging that accuracy for the sake of accuracy is the end goal.
Penny Slater is partnership lead, and Ellen Counter is interim deputy lead adviser for primary English, both at HFL Education.
