What is the most powerful teaching tool when it comes to writing?
My answer would have to be – the WAGOLL (what a good one looks like)!
Why you might ask?
Firstly, it allows you, as the teacher, to have a very clear idea of what you want the children to produce by the end of the week/unit of writing.
Once you know exactly where you want your pupils to be, it’s much easier to ascertain how to get them there and break it down into smaller steps – helping with your planning. The WAGOLL is always where I start when it comes to planning.
Right from the start, it enables you to share the bigger picture and set clear expectations for the children.
It’s a great hook to get the children excited about what they’re going to write and helps to get their imaginations and creative juices flowing.
We’ve all been there, when someone has explained something to us, but we just can’t quite visualise the exact outcome. If the children have an example to see how your explanations can be applied in the text, they are more likely to have a better understanding, boosting their confidence and motivation.
Let’s face it, presenting most adults with the task of writing a diary, story, non-chronological report, persuasive letter etc would send them into a spin. I for one, never write anything without looking at an example first, or without my trusty thesaurus by my side.
I think sometimes we forget that our pupils are only 7, 8, 9, 10 years old with very limited life experience. Many children wouldn’t even know where to start – how often have you seen students poised with their pencil, but unable to begin? It helps to support ALL pupils as the beauty of the WAGOLL is that it not only gives them the nitty gritty of the text such as vocabulary, punctuation etc, but it also demonstrates how to structure their writing and exactly what the finished article looks and sounds like.
However, the real highlight for me is that it gives the teacher total autonomy over the content. It can therefore be tailored to demonstrate exactly what you want it to; providing children with an abundance of examples to magpie if needed. This is the biggest difference between using a random example and writing your own WAGOLL. The fact that you can pack it full of examples of all the skills you wish to teach and consolidate through the genre makes it invaluable, and by far the most essential tool in the writing process.
Since using the I am a Clever Writer approach, I’ve discovered the power of the WAGOLL – it’s priority, and influence within the writing process, the assistance it gives me as a teacher with my planning of writing and most importantly I have seen the tremendous impact it has on outcomes.
If you’re someone who trawls the internet for hours searching for a vague, unrelated example of the genre to use as a model, I beg you to stop and start writing your own WAGOLLs. I promise, you will see the impact!
