Style perspectives: a meaningful grammar for writing

Abstract Summary

Abstract :

2017 saw the start of an intervention study about teaching grammar for writing. Eight experienced teachers from different secondary schools participate in a response group, which enables the research group to map regular teaching of grammar for writing. In order to do so, we analysed interviews, transcripts of group discussions, questionnaires (filled in by 240 pupils) and teaching materials. The teachers' approach appeared to be highly traditional, with a prescreptive approach, decontextualized excercises and a strong focus on avoiding errors. Successive research studies have indicated no correlation between this traditional grammatical approach and better writing (e.g. Myhill, Jones, Watson & Lines, 2013).















The teaching practice of Language Awareness and Myhill's concepts of metalinguistics for writing have inspired new lessons in style for writing. Key elements are: imitation of professional writing strategies; using authentic texts and grammatical metalanguage to highlight stylistic choices and their effects, and setting playful, experimental writing tasks. The lessons focus on mastery goals (instead of performative goals), with pupils trying to understand their work and achieve a sense of mastery based on self-referenced standards.















Inspiring as they may be, these new lessons still need to be taught by regular teachers (like myself), who are often burdened by a high workload. The starting point of this study is that the teacher is the key element of success. Therefore, the teachers involved play an important role. They are immediately involved in the design phase (discussing design principles), the pilot phase and the redesign phase. Many pilot lessons have been visited and discussed. The study so far has resulted in ten innovative, meaningful and playful lessons which teachers (not only those who participate in the project) are happy to give.















In this paper, I will discuss these lessons and experiences of teachers.

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