Descriptosaurus Personal Writing
The Writing Process in Action
Preview
Book Description
Descriptosaurus Personal Writing provides young writers with an opportunity to link their personal lives and school experiences, and gives writing a meaningful and personal context. It is a resource that will guide and scaffold students to produce vivid, powerful, descriptive and meaningful personal texts, and, acting as a springboard for other genres, will dramatically improve the quality of their writing in all areas.
It provides a detailed step-by-step guide through the writing process by using personal narratives to develop the skills, knowledge and understanding of writing a text. It demonstrates different techniques, and provides useful tips and suggestions on how to revise a text and transform it into a powerful, descriptive personal narrative. With prompts, plans, methods and models for poetry and prose, this book helps tackle each stage of the writing process from planning and writing a first draft to revising and editing.
Descriptosaurus Personal Writing is an ideal vehicle for welcoming and celebrating different cultures, experiences and stories into the writing curriculum: an invaluable resource to dramatically improve children’s writing for all KS2 primary and KS3 secondary English teachers, literacy coordinators and parents.
Table of Contents
Introduction 1. The Writing Process 2. Making Learning Visible in the Writing Process 3. Personal Narrative Writing: A Springboard for Other Forms of Writing 4. What is Personal Narrative Writing? 5. Getting Started: A Writing Journal & Poetry 6. Prompts 7. External Sources as Writing Prompts 8. Plot Outlines 9. Writing a First Draft 10. The Revision Process 11. Revising Action Scenes 12. Setting PART A: Setting as the Key Element PART B: Setting as part of the Personal Narrative 13. Character 14. Dialogue 15. Reflections 16. Editing APPENDIX
Author(s)
Biography
Alison Wilcox developed Descriptosaurus as a resource for her own teaching to scaffold and develop children’s creative writing, with dramatic results. The first Descriptosaurus book was published in 2009, and following its success, Alison gave up full-time teaching to research and write. Alison is now involved in several research projects, including working with the United Kingdom Literacy Association (UKLA) and the World Education Summit; working with schools to develop new resources; and conducting workshops for organisations, teaching alliances and schools.
Reviews
"Are you looking for ways to support personal writing? This accessible book is packed with ideas to help young writers use their memories, feelings and experiences and lean on their lives. This will help to support their development as writers and build a writing community in your classroom. A community of diverse and engaged writers."
Teresa Cremin, Professor of Education, The Open University, UK
"Supporting young children to write their own personal story can be one of the most enjoyable acts in all of teaching. And yet, young children require ample support to find their voice and to craft a compelling narrative. Alison Wilcox, in her book, Descriptosaurus Personal Writing, offers teachers a brilliantly accessible resource to help with that challenge of supporting young writers. By offering purposeful prompts, exciting exemplification, along with accessible guidance, Wilcox provides teachers with a timely tool to help grow great young writers."
Alex Quigley, author of Closing the Reading Gap and Closing the Vocabulary Gap