1/ Because the Primary English curriculum for writing has got distorted to focus on 'grammar', we overlook that writing can be developed by looking at 'ingredients': who narrates? can we deepen characters with flashbacks? can we create expectation/tension with 'reveal-conceal'?
2/What is a 'story arc' of a character through a story? How do we create motive, develop motive, satisfy or 'punish' motive by the end of the story? Do all the 'cogs' of the story engage throughout? Who helps, who hinders the protagonist(s)?
3/ Are we clear at the beginning what is the 'problem'? Is it a dilemma? A lack of something? A yearning for something? How will the character(s) achieve or attain the objective? Will they do it through their own actions? How do they engage with others?
4/ Are you in the story? ie how can you use your own experience? How can you adapt it, twist it, play with it, in order to provide detail, motive, imagery, feeling? How do you bring a reader nearer to 'a moment' in a story? (ie using sensory detail - using any of the 5 senses)
5/ How do you create 'interiority' ie people's thoughts and feelings? Do you do it with 'direct tags' eg 'she thought...' indirect, 'she thought that...' or 'free indirect' ie no tag and eg 'what should I do next?' or even 'what should she do next?' as if in my mind of 'she'.
6/ The present curriculum has pulled writing away from these fundamentals and focussed on the sentence, and bogus ideas of how sentences are constructed ie 'grammar' of words, and very little (or misleading stuff) on phrases and clauses.
7/ I suspect that the reason why nearly all of the previous are overlooked or passed over briefly is because the people in charge of primary Writing, have never read or understood anything about 'narratology' or practical writing guides for eg film students etc.
8/ The whole primary English curriculum is dominated by a 1920s view of language, uninformed by descriptive linguistics, stylistics, narratology and intertextuality. It's as if Physics ignored Atomic Physics. How do they get away with this mix of ignorance and prescriptiveness?
9/ The authorities rely on the fact that primary teacher training doesn't expose teachers to modern linguistics/stylistics/narratology while they (the authorities) are wedded to atomised, prescriptive, measurable units in relation to story and narrative.
10/ Further, the authorities can rely on the ignorance of MPs and ministers, who will themselves rely on people speaking with seeming authority about 'writing standards' by which they mean the measurable atomised parts of writing at the sentence level.
3/ Are we clear at the beginning what is the 'problem'? Is it a dilemma? A lack of something? A yearning for something? How will the character(s) achieve or attain the objective? Will they do it through their own actions? How do they engage with others?
4/ Are you in the story? ie how can you use your own experience? How can you adapt it, twist it, play with it, in order to provide detail, motive, imagery, feeling? How do you bring a reader nearer to 'a moment' in a story? (ie using sensory detail - using any of the 5 senses)
5/ How do you create 'interiority' ie people's thoughts and feelings? Do you do it with 'direct tags' eg 'she thought...' indirect, 'she thought that...' or 'free indirect' ie no tag and eg 'what should I do next?' or even 'what should she do next?' as if in my mind of 'she'.
6/ The present curriculum has pulled writing away from these fundamentals and focussed on the sentence, and bogus ideas of how sentences are constructed ie 'grammar' of words, and very little (or misleading stuff) on phrases and clauses.
7/ I suspect that the reason why nearly all of the previous are overlooked or passed over briefly is because the people in charge of primary Writing, have never read or understood anything about 'narratology' or practical writing guides for eg film students etc.
8/ The whole primary English curriculum is dominated by a 1920s view of language, uninformed by descriptive linguistics, stylistics, narratology and intertextuality. It's as if Physics ignored Atomic Physics. How do they get away with this mix of ignorance and prescriptiveness?
9/ The authorities rely on the fact that primary teacher training doesn't expose teachers to modern linguistics/stylistics/narratology while they (the authorities) are wedded to atomised, prescriptive, measurable units in relation to story and narrative.
10/ Further, the authorities can rely on the ignorance of MPs and ministers, who will themselves rely on people speaking with seeming authority about 'writing standards' by which they mean the measurable atomised parts of writing at the sentence level.
