How to Teach Fiction Writing at Key Stage 3 is a practical manual to help teachers of 11-14 year-olds to develop effective modeling and scaffolding strategies for the teaching of narrative writing. Using a step-by-step approach, based on the 'word/sentence/text level' convention, the book shows how teachers can help pupils to build work in various genres and to move out from these to more complex writing. Each section has a workshop approach that leads into a narrative writing activity, giving pupils the chance to complete a fully realized piece of work at the end each time.
The workshops focus on genre features, the craft of the writer, and specific year-related needs (taken from the KS3 Framework).
The book has a clear progression through KS3, and extension and support activities for the most and least able pupils are provided as an integral part of each section.
Introduction.
1. 'One dark and stormy night...'
2. A story in 50 words? Impossible...
3. The short short story.
4. Getting characters right.
5. Graphic ideas.
6. Superplots, timeshifting and problem-solving.
Neil MacRae has 14 years of classroom teaching experience and has been a Head of English at two 11-18 schools. He has worked for the advisory service in Suffolk since 1997 and was previously the director of an English PGCE course in Hertfordshire, where he was also an advisory teacher for three years. He is an Ofsted Inspector and author of a number of publications on teaching English.
