Opening Doors to literary texts - NATE

Opening Doors to literary texts In this article, educational consultant and award-winning author

Bob Cox explores the opportunities offered to young writers by the

use of challenging and inspiring literary texts. Let’s take this example to show how a quality text

can lead the thinking process for teachers. It is the

first stanza of a moving sonnet titled High Flight and

written by John Magee, a Canadian pilot in the

Second World War who sadly died in a mid-air

collision whilst based in Lincolnshire; but he had sent

his mother a wonderful poem and she passed it on

through the community – and it has since found fame

as the official poem of the RAF. Here is the first

stanza:

Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings. Sunward I’ve climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth Of sun-split clouds – and done a hundred things You have not dreamed of – wheeled and soared and swung High in the sunlit silence. Hov’ring there I’ve chased the shouting winds along and flung My eager craft through footless halls of air…

2 NATE Primary Matters Autumn 2018

‘Quality’ texts, from both past and present, come in

so many exciting styles and genres. We can quickly

name quality writers such as David Almond, Malorie

Blackman, Michael Rosen, Valerie Bloom, Shaun

Tan and Kiran Millwood Hargrave. Schools are

making very exciting progress mapping quality texts

to quality writing journeys across key stages using

such talented writers as these for inspiration.

But to what extent are literary texts from the past

also being used? Are these texts important only as

part of a world-famous legacy or also because, by

engaging with them, our pupils can learn more, go

‘deeper’, and acquire the habit of responding to

challenging texts? I would argue it’s both, and in the

last few years I have been working with hundreds of

schools to help teachers and pupils discover or re-

discover a fascination for literature which still has the

power to enthral; not only that, the texts can offer

opportunities which pupils of all abilities can accept

and enjoy.

Doug Lemov, in Reading Reconsidered, writes

about the need to ‘wrestle with specific types of

challenges posed by a rich array of challenging texts’.

The potential depth of the primary English curriculum

can benefit hugely from the ‘rich array’ Doug writes

about.

“Schools are

making very

exciting

progress

mapping

quality texts

to quality

writing

journeys

across key

stages using

such talented

writers as

these for

inspiration.”

Feature: Opening Doors to Literary Texts

Why not ‘play’ with the text first in your teaching teams? Try to master the meaning, explore any ambiguities and – above all – ask questions:

Why is there an exclamation mark at the beginning?

How can ‘shouting’ winds be ‘chased’?

‘Surly’ is fascinating. How does Magee use this contrast between sky and earth?

How many verbs are used as metaphors? What effect does this have?

Actually, the questioning is joyfully endless and the more the teaching teams explore the text, the more confident they become of the learning potential.

As I’ll show, the layering in of access strategies, objectives, differentiation and assessment for learning can become the most natural process possible once the beauty and the potential of the text have been gauged.

Look what happened when a teacher from Wales planned all sorts of dialogic talk and exploration to teach the pupils more about poetry writing and sonnets using High Flight as an inspiration. Sophie Marshall decided to write from the perspective of a dragon.

High Flight by Sophie Marshall, Year 5, Coastlands School, St. Ishmaels, Pembrokeshire:

Turning, churning, like cogs in a clock-tower,

Hovering above a taste-full candy cloud,

My fiery breath and amazing power

Fills the firmament, immense – but my loud,

Loud, loud screeching call by far is the best.

And when I say my claws are sharp

I always, always win the test.

And how I love to leap and dance, like a lark,

Above the chimney pots, as my scaly vest

Shimmers like fresh metal in a play park.

When close to the sun, my glistening crest

Is burnished gold as I dance and dive

Beyond the horizon of greenish trees

Far, far above the glowing, flowing seas.

It’s clear that, with the right strategies, the challenge of Magee’s text has been turned into a greater opportunity for understanding and response than would otherwise be possible. The partnership I see on my travels is one of quality text, quality teacher, quality writing. Please read and enjoy pupils’ work sent to me from across the UK on this dedicated page on Crown House Publishing’s website:

Opening Doors to Famous Poetry and

Prose –

https://www.crownhouse.co.uk/

publications/opening-doors-to-famous-

poetry-and-prose

Opening Doors to Quality Writing (ages

6–9) –

https://www.crownhouse.co.uk/

publications/opening-doors-to-quality-

writing

Opening Doors to Quality Writing (ages

10–13) –

link https://www.crownhouse.co.uk/

publications/opening-doors-to-quality-

writing1

So, what are some of the strategies and

processes which might support such

creative writing? For this article, I’ve

decided to include three which schools

have told me have made a huge

difference: access strategies, continuity

and progression in reading, and the use

of taster drafts.

We have to remember that pupils are reading texts which may be

challenging in all sorts of ways: some of the syntax may seem

baffling; word usage may be different; cultural contexts may

need explaining. Rather than the building of barriers, this can be

turned into curiosity and questioning. After all, perennial

favourites like Jabberwocky or The Owl and the Pussycat are full

of mysterious images and even invented words, but children love

that! I’m still wondering about that ‘vorpal sword’ in

Jabberwocky myself! So, for all pupils to access and enjoy the text, it’s a good idea

to develop a toolkit of strategies. It’s the text that leads, so the right kind of access is needed for the text chosen. It might be that some white-space thinking is helpful with questions around a picture:

With this one, connections are a good idea for linking together possibilities. Can your pupils work out the theme? Maybe a sliver of text is useful too:

Slowly, the tide creeps up the sand

Why not try a continuum line with quite slow movement at one end and very slow movement at the other? Use post-its and a real line of pupils to gauge how slow something might be. The dialogue will be revealing: for example, how slow is a flower opening compared to grass growing or a wait at the dentist’s?

After all the images and repetitions, the ensuing exploration of the theme enables a lot of teaching about variation, surprise and some profound philosophy.

Look at this response from a pupil at Homelands Primary School, Torquay:

Quickly

Quickly waves tickled the golden sand,

Quickly a lightning bolt struck the land.

Quickly trees move on a windy day,

Quickly leaves change colour as they sway.

Quickly tornadoes swirl up in mid-air,

Quickly waves make us stop and stare.

Quick is a hailstone – but quickest of all,

is a Formula 1 car that beats them all.

By Isaac Phillips (year 4)

It’s a good idea to link with other poems which can deepen understanding. What is Pink? by Christina Rossetti also has a clever ending after lots of repetition: https://www.teachingenglish.org.uk/article/colours-what-pink


“Perennial

favourites like

Jabberwocky

or The Owl

and the

Pussycat are

full of

mysterious

images and

even invented

words, but

children love

that!”


Read here how a pupil in Hampshire was inspired by Christina

Rossetti:

What is White?

What is white?

A boat is white

Sailing in the heavy night.

What is red?

A strawberry is red

Growing in the garden shed.

What is white?

A wolf is white

Howling in the moonlight.

What is blue?

The ocean is blue

With fish gently swaying through.

By Fraser Marden (Year 1),

Crofton Hammond Infant School

I was particularly struck by Fraser’s use of ‘heavy night’. What

an apt and interesting image to use!

Whether the texts are used in Key Stage 1 like these two or Key

Stage 2 like High Flight, opening doors to challenging texts

requires a flexibility of approach so that the full text might not be

offered until pupils have ‘tasted’ the style. I’ve then found that if

I ask the class, ‘Do you really want to hear the full sonnet by

Magee or the poem by Reeves?’ they cheer and beg for a

reading! So, the full sharing of the text becomes memorable and

the consequent suggestion to learn and recite deepens

understanding and they learn a lot about unusual styles.

Access to prose has the same principles. Arthur Conan Doyle’s

The Hound of the Baskervilles has proved enormously popular

with the mysterious illustration prompting ideas on the mystery

and adventure genre, and some very piercing questions on the

setting:

Every minute that white woolly plain which

covered one-half of the moor was drifting closer and

closer to the house. Already the first thin wisps of it

were curling across the golden square of the lighted

window. The farther wall of the orchard was already

invisible, and the trees were standing out of a swirl

of white vapour. As we watched it the fog-wreaths

came crawling round both corners of the house and

rolled slowly into one dense bank on which the upper

floor and the roof floated like a strange ship upon a

shadowy sea.

Instead of the more standard underlining of verbs and

adjectives or prepositional phrases, why not encourage more

sophisticated access by asking for groups to work on themes,

patterns and links first? As pupils recognise and explore the

images connected with the mist, they start to acquire the habit of

understanding the overall intention – and then showing how

parts of speech and specific techniques support the big picture of

the writing.

The access strategies can be continued as questions get layered

in around the quality text. Why not start with the hardest first?

How does Conan Doyle make the mist description mysterious?

Some pupils are equipped to start collecting evidence as the

dialogic talk has been so rich. If they are stuck, why not use a

radial layout of support prompts around the main question?

There is quite exciting feedback from schools about the use of

radial layouts. My favourite email is the one saying that ‘low

ability’ pupils have forgotten they are low ability because they

are following the same objectives and content as everyone else,

with questions distributed around the class.

High-ability pupils have to stretch themselves because of the

nature of the text and the in-depth comparison of styles included.

It can make mastery learning for all a real possibility, with

progress accelerated around key concepts and an open-ended

objective around which functional aspects of English can be

tagged. Schools are devising objectives as big questions:

How effectively can you build mystery in a narrative?

Year 6 pupils from St Augustine’s RC Primary in Surrey found

that studying Conan Doyle helped them experiment with a range

of styles.

Here are two examples of the same pupil’s work in taking on

this challenge:

I lay in bed, thinking of what we had seen that day, what we

had witnessed – the moors are a truly dangerous place full of

Beasties, Hell Hounds, demons, ghosts and worst of all, the

Morlane …

Sherlock and I were in a tea shop in London, having

elevenses; a warm and comforting well-needed cup of tea

with a tower of individually

perfect cup cakes, each with

their icing perfectly piped with

its own unique pattern ...

Well, that looks like a shift in

formality to me!

“The Hound of

the Baskervilles

has proved

enormously

popular with the

mysterious

illustration

prompting ideas

on the mystery

and adventure

genre, and some

very piercing

questions on the

setting.”



There is never going to be a limit to extending and discovering new access strategies. That’s exciting. Teachers opening doors to literature are doing so by developing adaptable principles and continuing with what works. They are not putting a model for English into practice but using the potential of literature for mastery approaches and in-depth learning. It's been important to link any extracts used for such classroom analysis to whole text reading on themes. I’ve called this ‘link reading’ rather than wider reading. I don’t like the latter phrase as it always suggests it’s just an option to read widely. I’d put it at the core of the curriculum: map out and expect quality reading journeys for your pupils and they will start fulfilling expectations!

Reading for pleasure encompasses reading for challenge because readers both young and old generally benefit from an eclectic mix. One of the best examples I’ve seen of ensuring a quality text curriculum as an integral part of school expectations is this ‘Reading Express’ from Churchfields Junior School in South Woodford. It’s self-explanatory. Parents and pupils engage daily and it integrates literature with all the genres and quality texts available:

http://www.churchfieldsjunior.com/reading-express/

Finally, I’d like to include in this article the concept of supporting the above reading journeys via short-burst writing early on in the process. I found in my action research before I wrote the Opening Doors series that pupils were often waiting too long to write. Motivation took a downward step and some promising ideas were lost by the time they were ‘permitted’ to put pen to paper. Also, I found that what I called taster drafts helped their comprehension of the full text when they finally saw it. The writing taster lit a fire in the imagination, which was transferred to text response. They were more interested in reading something difficult because they had already written something based on an early exposure to the style. The best taster drafts have tended to be word-limited or time-limited though pupils must demonstrate the beginning of the imitation of a great writer.

For example, take a look at this extract from Franz Kafka’s The Castle:

It was late evening when K. arrived. The village lay deep in snow. Nothing could be seen of the Castle Hill, it was hidden in mist and darkness, and not even the faintest gleam of light indicated the great castle there.

The teacher organised productive and inventive dialogic talk to explore the inference in this apparently simple passage. Once again, it was the fascination which supported all abilities to excel. I’ve seen dialogic talk used brilliantly in many classrooms and there has recently been a research-based endorsement in a report from the Education Endowment Foundation, which I’m s u r e y o u w i l l f i n d u s e f u l : h t t p s : / /educationendowmentfoundation.org.uk/our-work/projects/dialogic-teaching

I noticed something really exciting in the pupils’ taster drafts: the difference between the general standard of writing and the new learning prompted by Kafka. Read below the same pupil’s work earlier in the week, followed by the writing inspired by The Castle. It’s typed as written.

I am now at the table. I hear a bang on the door. I get up to see what it is. It’s Tia. ‘Mom’ I call ‘I’m off to the park. At the park my friends are Moly, Charllote, Millie. Tonight we are to a party at Camberley Disco Hall. The music is loud. We are singing and I am the best singer. It is getting late.

Inspired by The Castle:

There was not a sound to be heard, from up above K. could see the castle. As she travel'd in her horse and cart the castle got smaller and smaller and the night got darker and darker. ‘Stop horse!’ shouted K What could it be the night drew closer and the clock struck midnight and the figre turned around. ‘I am your password’ murmured the figre. K. was unsure

come on horsie follow that figre demanded K. The castle felt forever when K. was by herself and now she is with the password it seemed like a second for her to reach the castle. They had made it to castle where K. had found a big feast…..

My thanks to Frogmore Junior School in Hampshire. The pupil has clearly enjoyed writing it – that’s critical!

Let’s go back to the beginning with High Flight. A fundamental point of the quality text to quality writing journeys is for the teacher to assess what can be learnt by using that text in the planning process. I learnt so much about John Magee when I was considering the poem for inclusion in Opening Doors. I noticed it hanging on the wall of a 93-year-old neighbour’s living room, a huge manuscript with a proud frame. Her late husband had in fact been a pilot in the Battle of Britain. There are books and DVDs about the poem. It has, justly, a kind of cult following. It’s a really wondrous poem about the exultation of being alive and Magee must have known when he wrote it that his hopes of returning home were slim.

Just like in many quality picture books and children’s fiction, we can find in quality literature the potential for reflection, philosophy and wonder. My appreciation of this sonnet has grown – but I had to read it many times. All teachers are embarking on similar journeys in their relationship with their materials and some literary texts may take longer to master; though the potential for learning is greater.

I am seeing a quiet revolution going on in schools as confidence builds while using quality texts. Red Barn Primary in Hampshire sent me impressive responses to Matthew Arnold’s The Forsaken Merman, where various texts about sea myths had been cross-referenced and pupils’ views canvassed. I had included this text in Opening Doors to Quality Writing: Ideas for writing inspired by great writers for ages 10 to 13 and perhaps thought it was mainly for secondary schools. I was wrong! In fact, I am revising my perspectives with every tweet and email I get from teachers!

What we are giving all abilities is a literary legacy and a cultural capital which will give empowerment, language acquisition and confidence in a wider sphere. Including famous literature from as early an age as possible is part of an entitlement curriculum too. Those who miss out have had shallower journeys.

I’ll make a prediction. Debates about pedagogy and assessment objectives will continue to rage but, ultimately, great literature – past and present – will endure and will continue to inspire great writing.

Here is Ted Hughes, writing in Poetry in the Making, and his take on the kind of inspired writing flow we hope for.

‘That one thing is, imagine what you are writing about. See

it and live it. Do not think it up laboriously … Just look at it,

touch it, smell it, listen to it ... When you do this, the words

look after themselves, like magic.’



Bob Cox is a presenter, educational consultant

and writer with 23 years teaching experience.

He has spoken about the 'search for excellence'

at many regional, national and international

conferences, cross-phase, and his 'Opening

Doors' series of books won the educational

resource award for 2017 in the 'educational

book' category. @BobCox_SFE

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Opening Doors to literary texts - NATE