In the classroom, there is one activity that is guaranteed to result in a drop in energy and motivation levels: It is known in some schools as green pen work, in others as DIRT tasks. A Directed, Independent, Remedial Task is when the student reads through the teacher’s feedback on an extended piece of writing, and acts on it, making improvements to their own work. Well, that’s the theory anyway.
In practice, many students don’t really engage with the activity, unless the teacher is literally sitting on their shoulder. As a former secondary school teacher, I used to spend a good deal of time trying to come up with targeted, actionable feedback for each student. I then used to puzzle over why some students’ written responses were cursory and slapdash.
I’ve only really reached a conclusion as to why this might be now that I’m a tutor.
The thing is: classroom lessons are fast paced by necessity: there’s a lot to teach in English every half term. Students get into the mindset that once they have written something, it’s ‘done’ and it’s time to move on. The fact that their written work is often marked with a grade before they must do their green pen work compounds this feeling. To give schools and teachers their due, they often prepare the students for a writing task, arranging for them to write paragraphs and plans in the lead up to a ‘major’ piece of writing, but the continuity and reasoning behind this process may not be transparent to many.
As a tutee, your teenager has the space and time to work on their written work at their own pace, and it helps that there is nowhere to ‘hide’ in a one-to-one situation, so tutees are obliged to improve their writing. A tutor can also motivate a tutee effectively, through pointing out in detail where improvements are taking place. Once a tutee has begun to really make improvements in their writing, I tend to observe an attitude shift in them, which leads to further improvements. Below, I share 6 mindsets that I see mirrored in my most successful tutees.
1 Take pride in your written work
You don’t tend to get the highest marks by dashing off a draft of a story in 30 minutes and then moving on to something else. The reason behind this is that while you are writing your story, your mind is occupied with what you are going to write (especially if you haven’t written a detailed plan – ahem!). You don’t tend to have enough cognitive space to consider accuracy while you are shaping your story.
This is why it’s imperative for you to leave time in the writing process to plan and proofread. Use a checklist of punctuation mistakes to look out for, or success criteria when you do so. Before you do this though, you need to believe that it will work. Experiment with submitting one unedited draft to your tutor and one that you have planned/proofread and observe the difference in feedback if you’re in any doubt.
2 Accept that less is often more
Often tutees think that a story is only good if it involves multiple changes in location and plenty of violence. Reading their drafts is a bit like being taken on a whistle stop tour of my favourite horror film with all the nuance and interesting detail removed.
Your teenager needs to be shown that the most interesting and compelling stories and descriptions are often centred in one location. I encourage tutees to avoid explicit violence and huge plot shifts. They need to learn that the interest is often in suggestion and details.
3 Recognise that writing is a craft
My tutees get used to writing and revising successive drafts of their work. This is an authentic practice amongst professional writers, after all, and this fact often gets lost in the hurly burly of school. There is a real satisfaction about observing a before and after attempt and once students have committed to the process, they can enjoy the fruits of their labour.
4 Be prepared to be detail-oriented
In a one-to-one situation, tutors have time to give detailed feedback on work. It’s your teenager’s responsibility to attend to this in detail and to make changes. But tutees learn that this is the first step – it’s a surface change. To really deepen their learning, they need to record their corrections in a comprehensive way. One tutee has difficulties with spelling. He has committed to keeping a well-organised spelling journal, in which he corrects (in a different colour) the wrongly spelled letters. He then uses the correctly spelled word in a meaningful context to him. Another tutee is systematically collecting new words in a vocabulary book as he reads texts that I supply to him for homework. This is gradually feeding into his writing. These are both quite pedestrian examples of the sort of actions that you need to take to really improve your weaknesses as a writer. They are quite hard work and require consistency but are so worth it in the end.
5 Embrace reasons to write
There are always lots of writing competitions available for young writers. What better way to have a compelling reason to write? It may seem ‘geeky’ but it does provide a writer with an independent assessment of their writing, and it tends to be a powerful motivator, because it is authentic. My tutees tend to get hooked on it quite quickly.
6 Learn to love reading attentively
During my lessons, I tend to use close reading of texts as a springboard to writing. Why? Because it gives tutees the opportunity to ‘steal with pride’ techniques and vocabulary that experienced writers use to great effect.
Before they start working with me, tutees often say they don’t enjoy reading. This is often because the texts they are required to read at school are too challenging / don’t feel relevant to them. I work with tutees to break through this barrier and find something that they are motivated to read.
Ready to get your teenager taking pride in their writing and getting better grades? (Creative writing is worth 25% of their final English language GCSE grade, after all)
I regularly run creative writing courses. They’re for your teenager if:
- They have good analytical skills, but their creative writing is holding them back .
- They struggle to plan creative writing and their content is full of cliché .
- Their written vocabulary is limited .
- They need to reignite their passion for English, and boost their confidence.
Just get in touch if you’d like to learn more.
