Heritage writing project
Writing to develop a sense of cultural identity
Organisation: Centre for Language in Primary Education (CLPE)
Aim: To support teachers in developing children’s sense of their own cultural identity, using particular texts and approaches, in order to enhance writing development.
Summary: 12 teachers (primary and y7) from Lambeth schools participated in the project. Underpinning the Heritage Writing Project lie certain principles about the teaching of writing, drawn largely from CLPE’s research project published as The Reader in the Writer.
This project demonstrated the role of certain kinds of literature on children’s writing at KS2, particularly ‘emotionally powerful’ texts with important themes and recognisable characters and settings, and texts with strong literary styles and rhythms.
The project also highlighted the importance of certain key teaching approaches, including daily reading aloud times, exploring and reflecting on texts through discussion, and the use of drama and writing in role. Important for this project was the idea that an approach to writing based on literature was found to help all children, but particularly bilingual children.
A box of books was carefully chosen for teachers to use with their classes. The boxes contained a range of novels, picture books, traditional tales and poetry.
In terms of their content these books reflected the cultural backgrounds of the children in the schools, and dealt with important themes relating to identity, for example places and journeys, memories and racism.
View other projects relating to Local community / CPD for teachers / Cultural diversity / Drama / EAL / Non-fiction / Poetry / Short stories / Storytelling / KS1 / KS2 / London
