Posted on: 30/08/2019
It’s this time of year again. As the curtains close on Summer, minds tentatively return to the logistics of setting up a classroom and as always there are many questions bouncing down school corridors:
Which books will I be using? Where will my displays go? Who has taken the laminator?! What was that piece of advice my tutor gave me? Oh good god!...the trimmer?!! Prioritising these questions is in some ways the hardest task as each demand seems essential and immediate.
One of the most important displays in the classroom is the English Working Wall (along with Maths of course) and in this blog we want to help answer the question: how do I make an effective Literacy working wall?
A working wall should be meaningful for children rather than just looking the part. A wall that will be relevant to the book being studied; that will exemplify vital skills – words and sentences that integrate into longer passages as well as giving children a sense of audience and purpose. An interactive wall; open to differentiation and that will not need hours of laminating and trimming so will be practically straightforward to keep up-to-date.
Through our consultancy and work with teachers we have seen some very effective working walls. Taking this inspiration and experience into our planning sequences we have developed some ideas and resources – for all year groups - that can make a definite impact. So, given that time is of the essence, we have drawn out six pertinent pedagogical approaches and principles for making an effective Literacy working wall and given them a brief outline. We hope it helps!
Grammar Splat
A Grammar Splat can be enlarged and lamented onto the working wall and used for any number of books. Once the book has begun, it allows children time to analyse the language of the author. On post-it notes children can gather various words from different parts of the text and identify their word classes. It allows opportunities to discuss how words do not have inherent word classification but rather receive this from how they are being used in the sentence. For example, many words can act as both nouns and verbs e.g. a drum/to drum. Also, words ending in the suffix -ing can be used as verbs (the girl is drumming), nouns/gerunds (drumming is great fun) and adjectives (the drumming girl). We can ask children the question: how has the author used this word in this sentence? What effect does this have? Furthermore, children are creating their own word banks which they can use when it comes to their own writing and having the words on post-its allow them to, not only move them fluidly through classifications, but to take some to their desks when needed. When a new book is started, the words can be renewed! Grammar Splats could also be created for conjunctions and prepositions.
Shades of Meaning
Shades of Meaning are a set of different shades of one colour that could go down the side or along the top of the working wall. There has been a lot of research that shows, whilst looking up synonyms in a thesaurus is important, there needs to be a further layer of support that allows children to become more discerning of the various ‘shades of meaning’ in each synonym. What is the difference between the word ‘misplaced’ and ‘abandoned’? ‘Miffed’ and ‘outraged’? Words with stronger emotive connotations will go in the deeper shades. Looking up the word ‘frozen’, a child may write the sentence, ‘He stood refrigerated to the spot’, why is this not an appropriate synonym here? Often children will use the longest synonym in a bid to impress rather than thinking of which is most appropriate. This is a great way to make space in a lesson to discuss the subtlety of synonyms and display them in a meaningful way.
Zones of Relevance
This resource crops up many times in our planning sequences; it is extremely versatile and would be very effective displayed on the working wall. Again, a great chance for children to develop their own word bank. In groups, children can discuss which adjectives are most relevant for a character or setting description. The most relevant in the centre of the target and the less relevant on the outside. There is not always a clear right or wrong here, however this allows space to discuss why and for pupils to explain their reasoning. The Zones of Relevancecould also be used to discuss themes when evaluating a text.
Role on the Wall
Building on character descriptions, Role on the Wall can be used for any character and is particularly applicable when discussing the personality of a character (place these adjectives on the inside) and the appearance of a character (adjectives on the outside). It can be used for a chance to develop children’s inference skills by noting how a character is explicitly acting and what this says about their inner feelings. Through using modal verbs and conjunctions these notes can be linked together in sentences e.g. Tybalt is feeling furious because he is shaking his clenched fists. It can also be used to develop children understanding of ‘show not tell’ i.e. what a character says and how they say it. What are the things that he said or thought? How were they acting?
Sentence Strips
We love sentence strips! They are versatile, creative and can be used in all year groups. What is most satisfying about them, is that children can write sentences, and these can be easily displayed on the working wall. They are tactile and they allow opportunities for learning about editing, punctuation and sentence construction in a ‘hands-on’, investigatory way. They can be used to demonstrate coordination and subordination. With post-its of varying size, they can demonstrate word choice and adverbials. It allows children to experiment with where adverbials might go in a sentence (whether fronted or not). They can be cut up and used to insert relative clauses (a bit of masking tape can act as the commas or parenthesise) and can breathe new life into an overreliance on SPAG worksheets. Again, it allows us to ask children about the ever-important sense of audience and purpose.
Modelled and Shared Writes
Probably the most important part of any writing lesson is to create modelled and shared writes and often these can overlap. These allow space for the teacher to demonstrate how all these word, sentence, punctuation, dialogue and grammar activities can be integrated into a longer piece of writing. It also incorporates a plethora of AfL strategies like, ‘deliberate mistake’, ‘thinking aloud’ and ‘think-pair-share’ letting children to see and hear the writing process and the teacher as a writer.
We hope these six examples will get you off to an excellent start, helping you to integrate your own creative ideas into your Literacy working wall. Our shared aim is to create working walls that will always be relevant and interactive, developing children’s awareness of language and different author’s approaches. Literacy walls that allow children to share ownership of the writing process, the result being a collaborative effort of teacher and pupil.
