CHAPTER

10
Writing electronic texts

Introduction
For a number of reasons, writing was one of the first aspects to be significantly affected by
the development of personal computers and other new technologies. The vast majority of
the writing that gets done in the world – at least the commercial world – today is done
through the medium of information technology. The sheer prominence of screen-, as
opposed to paper-, based writing means that we need to familiarise children with the skills
and possibilities of this new medium if they are to use it confidently in their lives. But ICT
also makes possible a number of beneficial approaches to the teaching of writing. Evidence
suggests that the use of computers as tools for writing can significantly enhance children’s
understanding of, and competence in, all forms of writing. The National Curriculum
requires teachers to make sure that ‘pupils should have opportunities to plan and review
their writing, assembling and developing their ideas on paper and on screen’.
ICT has, therefore, a dual role in teaching and developing writing. On the one hand, it
can effectively help children learn how to write in traditional forms; on the other, it extends
these forms by adding new possibilities for writing. In this chapter I will explore some of the
possibilities of both these roles. I will begin by looking closely at the predominant writing
tool offered by ICT, the word-processor.
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

Using word-processors
How can a word-processor help?
Many teachers have been impressed by the way even quite young children learn quickly how
to use word-processing programs on the computer, and seem to be able to improve the qual-
ity of their writing by doing so. What is it about word-processors that leads to this
improvement?
To answer this question we need, first, to look at the ways in which our understanding of the
process of writing has changed over the last few years. Perhaps the most significant feature of
this change has been the realisation that to expect children to produce well-thought-out, inter-
esting writing, correctly spelled and punctuated, grammatical and neatly written, at one

126

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 chapter 10 Writing electronic texts

sitting, is to expect the impossible. Even experienced adult writers do not work that way, and
will confirm that any writing other than the most trivial goes through several drafts before it is
considered finished. Many teachers encourage their pupils to approach writing in this way,
that is to write drafts which can then be revised, shared with other readers, discussed and
edited, before reaching their final versions. At Key Stage 2, the National Curriculum requires
that pupils be given opportunities to do this, and spells out the process in some detail:

Pupils should be taught to:

n plan – note and develop initial ideas;

n draft – develop ideas from the plan into structured written text;
n revise – alter and improve the draft;
n proofread – check the draft for spelling and punctuation errors, omissions or repetitions;
n present – prepare a neat, correct and clear final copy.

The use of the word-processor as a writing tool reinforces this drafting process. Writing on a
computer screen does not have the permanence of writing on paper. Everything about it
becomes provisional, and can be altered at the touch of a key. This provisional nature of word-
processed writing has very important implications for the way children think about and set
about their writing.
A significant reason why children may find it difficult to really accept the idea of writing as
provisional when it is done on paper is the fact that, if they wish to change their writing, this
will usually involve rewriting it. The sheer physical effort of this will persuade some children
to adopt a much more studied, once-and-for-all approach to their writing. With a word-
processor, however, alterations can be made on the screen and there is no need to rewrite. This
facility for immediate error correction allows children to approach writing much more exper-
imentally. They soon become prepared to try things out and alter them several times if need
be. They also begin to be able to live with uncertainty. If, for example, they are unsure of
particular spellings, they can try an approximation and check it later, without breaking the
flow of their writing ideas. ‘We’ll do the spellings afterwards’ becomes a familiar strategy.
An example of this provisionality in writing can be seen in the following two versions of a
story written by a six-year-old girl.
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

Version 1
once upon a time there was a baby called henry and a big dragon too and a boy called tom and a girl
called sarah and the baby and the big dragon took them to the world of darkness and tom was scared
but sarah said its spooky and scary but the nice dragons said wheel keep you safe and that is there
best one

Version 2
Once upon a time there was a baby dragon called henry and a big dragon called peter. They had so
many adventures but there best one is when they made friends with a boy called tom and a girl called
sarah. The baby and the big dragon took them to the frightening world of darkness and tom was
scared. Sarah said its spooky and scary but the friendly dragons said wheel keep you safe and they
did. That is there best adventure.

127

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 Teaching Literacy

The first version she wrote by herself on paper, and then typed into a word-processor. It is a
fairly typical infant story with an unadventurous use of words, no punctuation and a plot
which seems not to have been thought through. The second version, which she produced after
about 20 minutes on the computer, suggests, however, that some of these judgements about
her writing ability may have been harsh. Here, her range of vocabulary increases, the techni-
cal aspects of her writing improve, and her plot, while still not outstanding, at least shows an
attempt to take into consideration the needs of a reader. The computer allowed her space to
experiment and also to step back from her writing and read it with fresh eyes. These two
features are perhaps the most significant of the benefits that word-processing gives to chil-
dren’s writing.
Another significant feature provided by word-processing is the facility to cut and paste text
electronically. Sections of text can easily be moved around the piece of writing. This allows
writers to re-sequence their writing with little effort and to experiment with different
sequences.
An example of this can be seen in the following story written by two six-year-olds after
reading A Troll at School by Elizabeth Walker.

Once upon a time a troll lived in a bucket of paint. One day he went to my friends school and he bit
my friends hand and she shouted miss brown that is her teacher. Her teacher said go to the head
teacher. My friend is called Sarah. The head teacher said sit on the prickly mat. Then it was time to go
home and when we went to bed we heard noises going like this bump bump bump bump bump and
bump. Guess who it was. You are right it was the troll. He was green and slimy with red eyes.

After discussing this with their teacher, they agreed that it would improve their story if two
sentences were moved to different places. This was done with eight key presses on the word-
processor.

Once upon a time a troll lived in a bucket of paint. He was green and slimy with red eyes. One day he
went to my friend Sarah’s school and he bit my friends hand and she shouted miss brown that is her
teacher. Her teacher said go to the head teacher. The head teacher said sit on the prickly mat. Then it
was time to go home and when we went to bed we heard noises going like this bump bump bump
bump bump and bump. Guess who it was. You are right it was the troll.

It is, of course, possible to achieve this with pencil and paper by using arrows, or with scissors
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

and glue, but neither of these methods compares with the simplicity of the word-processor.
Again, this facility increases the provisionality of writing. Not only can text be changed at
will, but it can also be rearranged in any number of ways. The full benefits of this will be seen
later in the chapter when we discuss desktop publishing.
Most word-processors also have the facility to search through texts for particular words or
markers, and then replace them with other words. This can assist children’s writing in a vari-
ety of ways. First, it allows them to change their minds easily. If, for example, they have
written a story about a boy called Pete and suddenly decide they really want it to be about a
girl called Mary, these details can be altered throughout the text by a couple of key presses.
Secondly, it provides a way of dealing easily with consistent misspellings. If, for example, a

128

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 chapter 10 Writing electronic texts

child regularly spells ‘occasion’ as ‘ocassion’, or ‘should’ as ‘sholud’, he can be asked to check
these words after finishing his writing. Having ascertained the correct spelling, he can then
use the word-processor to alter every occurrence of the misspelling at one go. Most word-
processors allow the user to decide whether each individual occurrence should be altered.
Usually the user has to press ‘Y’ or ‘N’ as appropriate. This can be useful if there are words the
child confuses regularly, such as ‘there’ and ‘their’, or ‘hear’ and ‘here’. Being asked to
consider each one in turn encourages children to become more aware of the contexts in which
each one is appropriate.
A further use of the search-and-replace facility is to eliminate some of the distraction
caused when children search for the spellings of words they are unsure of. These can be
entered at first using a marker. When the first draft is done, the children can then find the
correct spellings and use the replace facility to change their markers.
An example of this use of spelling markers can be seen in the following short piece. The
child first wrote:

Once upon a time there was a slimy t** who lived in a paint pot. This t** was f** but he was only f**
with people who were f** with him. With other people the t** was fierce.

The spellings of ‘troll’ and ‘friendly’ were then checked, and the replace facility used to
produce:

Once upon a time there was a slimy troll who lived in a paint pot. This troll was friendly but he was
only friendly with people who were friendly with him. With other people the troll was fierce.

This is an extremely useful technique in writing, and once children understand it they can use
it to save themselves a great deal of writing effort. Frequently used words can also be entered
as markers, and typed once in full at the end of the writing. This was how the writer wrote the
word ‘word-processor’ in the present chapter.
A further important feature of word-processing has already been hinted at. If a piece of
writing can be saved to disk, it can then be re-read and re-edited at a later date. The facility to
edit previously created text has a very important effect. Writing ceases to be a one-shot exer-
cise, with everything having to be done correctly at one sitting. There is, in fact, no limit to the
number of times the writer can return to it and make changes as easily as the first time. This
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

adds to writing the important dimension of time. Ideas can be considered over time, new
ideas can be taken on board and writing can be discussed with others. This has the effect of
making writing a much more thoughtful process.
Allowing children the time for the reflective editing implied by this may seem to involve
the dedication of large amounts of computer time to very few children. This, however, need
not be so because of the facility to print out the writing that the children produce. They can
then take away this print-out, and work on revising it away from the computer. This can
involve crossing sections out, scribbling extra ideas in and discussing the draft with anyone
they wish. They can then return to the computer when it is again free, to call up their draft and
make any changes to it they feel necessary, before printing again. This process can then be
repeated.

129

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 Teaching Literacy

Using hard copy for initial revision has an extra advantage in addition to freeing computer
time for others to use. By altering printed text, and especially by crossing out, children can begin
to lose their fear of making writing messy. Because of their earlier educational experience, many
children approach writing under what has been termed ‘the tyranny of the flawless page’. They
are extremely reluctant to do anything to disturb this flawlessness. A print-out, however, has
cost them little physical effort and can always be repeated if need be. It need not, therefore, be
kept flawless. This change in children’s attitudes towards writing has great significance for their
future approach to it, and helps convince them of the provisional nature of writing.
There is, of course, little point in using a word-processor with children unless their work
can be printed out. Print-outs are available, however, not in single but in multiple copies,
which can be of immense benefit. It is a simple matter to take sufficient copies of a piece of
writing for the child to have one to go in a folder, the teacher to have one to display, one to be
placed in the child’s record portfolio and one to be taken home to parents. The significance of
this is readily seen by considering what happens with non-word-processed writing which a
teacher wishes to put on display. Often this results in the child having to copy it out, with
consequent negative effects on that child’s motivation to write.
A further advantage of printed writing is its levelling effect. Many children have poor self-
images of themselves as writers, not because they lack ability in the composing aspects of the
process, but because they simply find handwriting a strain. In word-processing, poor hand-
writing is no longer a problem. Children with poor physical co-ordination can write as well as
those with good, and the sense of achievement these children get can be enormous. This is not
to argue, of course, that clear, efficient handwriting is no longer necessary. Children will still
need to be taught handwriting. It does mean, though, that lack of ability in this aspect of writ-
ing need not assume the overarching, debilitating effects it often does. It also means that
teachers can get beyond the presentation aspects of children’s writing when attempting to
make judgements about children’s abilities. Most children will need help of some kind with
their writing, but it is easy for teachers to concentrate this help on the physical aspect simply
because this is what stands out immediately. If this aspect can be discounted, teachers can
direct their help to other, more important, parts of the writing process.
Children’s word-processed text can be rearranged in various ways on the computer. This
makes it possible for their writing to emerge looking very much like that in ‘real’ books, with
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

consequent benefits for their motivation to write. The aspect of this which is usually discov-
ered first is justification, the effects of which can be seen in the following example of the
writing of a six-year-old. Her story first looked like this:

once there was a dragon called Ace he was a friendly dragon and Ace met a boy called john and the
dragon said will you have a fight with me because if you do and you win I will take you for a ride
yes said John I will have a fight against you John won the fight and the dragon took John for a ride
to the moon they came back with straw so they did not hurt themselves.

This was then corrected and (justified) to produce this:

Once there was a dragon called Ace. He was a friendly dragon. Ace met a boy called John and the
dragon said, will you have a fight with me? Because if you do and you win I will take you for a ride.

130

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 chapter 10 Writing electronic texts

Yes, said John. I will have a fight against you. John won the fight and the dragon took John for a ride
to the moon. They came back with straw so they did not hurt themselves.

The child was delighted with the look of this and commented that it was just like in her read-
ing book.
This ability to rearrange text can be taken further by altering the format of the text. If the
writing had been done for a class newspaper, it could be formatted with narrower columns.
Once there was a dragon called Ace. He was a for a ride. Yes, said John. I will have a fight
friendly dragon. Ace met a boy called John and against you. John won the fight and the dragon
the dragon said, will you have a fight with me? took John for a ride to the moon. They came
Because if you do and you win I will take you back with straw so they did not hurt themselves.

Most word-processors also permit writing to be produced in a variety of type styles, or fonts,
from Script to Gothic. So the above story might be produced as:

Once there was a dragon called Ace. He was a friendly dragon. Ace met a boy called John and
the dragon said, will you have a fight with me? Because if you do and you win I will take you for
a ride. Yes, said John. I will have a fight against you. John won the fight and the dragon took
John for a ride to the moon. They came back with straw so they did not hurt themselves.

or:

Once there was a dragon called Ace. He was a friendly dragon. Ace met a boy called John and the
dragon said, will you have a fight with me? Because if you do and you win I will take you for a ride.
Yes, said John. I will have a fight against you. John won the fight and the dragon took John for a ride
to the moon. They came back with straw so they did not hurt themselves.

Such features can enhance children’s writing a great deal, and all have the effect of making
children enjoy writing more.
Word-processors can be used as writing tools for individual children. This is, however, an
uneconomic use of expensive equipment and does not make best use of their particular
features. Because writing appears on what looks like a television screen it is much more public
than the usual pencil-and-paper process. It positively invites sharing. A more usual way of
using the word-processor is for children to write in collaboration with one or two of their
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

classmates. This enables discussion and debate to take place about the writing, which has an
almost inevitable beneficial effect upon the quality of what is produced.
In fact, improved quality in writing is the chief reason for the use of word-processors with
children. There are several reasons why this happens, one of which, the opportunity for
discussion and debate, has already been referred to. There is also the distancing effect word-
processors seem to have; they allow children to stand back from their writing and read it with
fresh eyes. This distancing permits them to make changes they would, perhaps, otherwise not
realise were necessary.
Word-processors can also be used as teaching devices in the context of children’s writing,
with consequent improvements in quality. An example of this can be seen in the following
piece written jointly by two seven-year-olds. After hunting for minibeasts in the school field,
the two boys wrote:

131

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 Teaching Literacy

today we went out side to look for little creatures and we found an ant and one was red and jamie
russ found a big black spider and daniel jones caught it in his pot and we also caught a centipede and
it was red and it went very fast and mrs wilkins caught a earwig and two caterpillars but one caret-
pillar escaped from the yoggat pot and we found some slugs and they made a slimy trail on the white
paper

Their teacher asked them to read the piece to her, and they were all struck by the over-use of
the word ‘and’. The teacher used the search-and-replace facility of the word-processor to
exchange the ‘ands’ for markers and asked them to look at the writing again.

today we went out side to look for little creatures *** we found a ant *** one was red *** jamie russ
found a big black spider *** daniel jones caught it in his pot *** we also caught a centipede *** it was
red *** it went very fast *** mrs wilkins caught a earwig *** two caterpillars but one caretpillar
escaped from the yoggat pot *** we found some slugs *** they made a slimy trail on the white paper

This revision produced the following finished article:

Today we went out side to look for little creatures and we found ants. One of them was red. Just then
Jamie Russ found a big black spider. Then daniel jones caught it in his pot. We also caught a
centipede. The centipede was red like the ant. The centipede went very fast like the ant. Mrs Wilkins
caught an earwig and two caterpillars but one escaped from the pot. Then we found some slugs and
they made a slimy trail on the white paper.

The improvement in quality is quite clear. This may have happened without the use of the
word-processor but it is doubtful that the process would have been so simple, or the children
so eager to do it.
There are, therefore, several excellent reasons why word-processors should feature promi-
nently in the writing experience of primary children. Of course, as with any teaching
materials, it is the manner of use of this new tool which is the crucial factor. In the next section,
therefore, we will discuss strategies for using word-processors in the classroom.

Ways of using word-processors

The word-processor as a typewriter

A fairly common way of using a word-processor in the classroom, especially when the teacher
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

and children are new to it, is to dedicate it to the task of producing fair copies of children’s
writing. In this mode of use, children write their pieces in the traditional way, and when these
are judged suitable, they are allowed to type them into the computer. Sometimes, for speed,
the teacher will assist with this typing.
There are, of course, several advantages in this mode of use. Word-processed writing is
neat and professional-looking, typing it in is a reasonably quick task, and the teacher can help
things along by taking a turn at the typing, even when the children are not there. Moreover,
because not every piece of writing can be typed in, the use of the word-processor can be seen
as a reward for children who produce good writing, and this, therefore, gives children an
incentive to try harder with their writing.

132

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 chapter 10 Writing electronic texts

There are, however, some problems as well. The writing that is typed into the word-
processor is already ‘final draft’; that is, it has been considered, maybe revised and edited
before it reaches the computer. The ease of doing exactly these things, however, is the major
benefit to be gained from using the word-processor. Therefore the computer is not being used
to its best advantage.
Neither is the elitism of this mode of use helpful. If using the word-processor is a reward
for doing good writing, children who have problems with writing (who can be the majority in
a class) will get insufficient use of the computer for it to be of help to them. And, as was
pointed out in the previous section, help them it can, if only by allowing them space to exper-
iment with their writing and instantly abandon experiments which do not work. Using the
word-processor as a typewriter does not encourage this experimentation, and, in this way,
misses the real point of the activity.

The word-processor as a composing tool

Of far more benefit is the use of the word-processor as a tool for composition rather than
simply transcription. This implies children using the computer for the whole of the writing
process – from the initial jotting down of ideas to writing a first draft to revising and editing
this draft to finally printing a finished piece.
Of course, using the word-processor in this way is very intensive of computer time. The
groups need a great deal of time in front of the screen. This can be cut down if the pupils are
encouraged to make regular printouts of their work and take them away to discuss and
revise, but there will be occasions when children need to reflect while looking at their writing
on the computer screen, to try things out and consider the results, and to talk about what they
are doing as they are doing it. Because of these demands upon time, and of the other children
in the class who also need their turn, it makes most sense to involve children in writing in
groups rather than as individuals. This has positive benefits in that it ensures children will
discuss their writing, with consequent improvements in quality.

Shared writing with a word-processor

A word-processor can be used as a medium for shared writing, although, of course, the
presentation device used will need to be sufficiently large for the writing on it to be read easily
by the whole class. This requires either a very large computer screen (a 21-inch screen may
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

just be large enough), a data projector to project the computer image onto a large screen or
wall, or an electronic whiteboard.
Here are a few examples of possible shared writing lessons that teachers might adapt for
their own purposes:

1. Word-level work – Year 4

Objective: to spell regular verb endings s, ed, ing.

Set the word-processor to display a large font, e.g. 28-point, and type in the following list of
words: care, come, face, file, give, glue, hope, ice, joke, like, live, love, make. Type ing after the first
few, using a different font. Explain the rule about dropping the final e, and delete the spaces

133

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 Teaching Literacy

between the word and the suffix. Finally, delete the e as well, giving a dynamic demonstration
of how the joining of stem and suffix and the deletion of the final e are part of the same action.
Do this with a couple of examples.

give ing give ing giveing giving

hope ing hope ing hopeing hoping

Now let individual children come to the computer to carry out the same action. If you have a
talking word-processor you can listen to the sounds of the words and then compare them to
some common spelling mistakes such as ‘comming’ and ‘hopping’.

2. Sentence-level work – Year 4

Objective: to identify common adverbs with a -ly suffix.

Set the word-processor to display a large font, e.g. 28-point, and type in the following list of
-ly adverbs: quickly, slowly, swiftly, sluggishly, rapidly, unhurriedly. Highlight the ‘ly’ and then
increasing the size (on most word-processors this can be done by holding down Ctrl + Shift
and > (greater than), and decreasing the size is achieved by holding down Ctrl + Shift and <
(less than)).

quickly quickly quickly ly

quick

Let some pupils try this with other words. Such animations are a good way of fixing certain
letter strings in pupils’ minds.

3. Sentence-level work – Year 3

Objective: to recognise the function of verbs in sentences, and to use verb tenses in writing.

Use a large font size and write some simple sentences without their verbs, e.g.

‘Alexander all the chocolate bars.’

Ask the pupils what is missing. Where should the missing word go? What possibilities are
there for this missing word or phrase? Type one suggestion into the sentence, using a font
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

which stands out. Use copy-and-paste to reproduce the same sentence five or so times. In each
sentence, use a different verb, or a variation on the same verb.

Alexander ate all the chocolate bars.

Alexander grabbed all the chocolate bars.
Alexander hated all the chocolate bars.
Alexander will eat all the chocolate bars.
Alexander eats all the chocolate bars.
Alexander has eaten all the chocolate bars.

Discuss all the different meanings that this creates. Pupils should now be in a position to write
their own versions of this changing sentence.

134

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 chapter 10 Writing electronic texts

As an extension to this activity, you could try adding adverbs (Year 4 – identify adverbs
and . . . notice where they occur in sentences and how they are used to qualify the meanings of
verbs). Does a different position affect the meaning of the sentence?

Alexander quickly ate all the chocolate bars.

Quickly, Alexander ate all the chocolate bars.
Alexander ate all the chocolate bars quickly.

4. Sentence-level work – Year 5

Objective: to investigate clauses through understanding how clauses are connected.

Have on the screen/whiteboard some examples of jumbled sentences, that is sentences in

which the main and subordinate clauses do not match.

Walking slowly along the road, Libby finally forced herself out of bed.
When Mum shouted upstairs, James suddenly heard the hoot of a car behind him.

Discuss these sentences and demonstrate how, using ‘drag and drop’ or ‘cut and paste’, they
can be sorted out.
Try moving the subordinate clause to a different position in the sentence, and discuss any
changes to the meaning that this causes.

Walking slowly along the road, James suddenly heard the hoot of a car behind him.
James suddenly heard the hoot of a car behind him, walking slowly along the road.

Pupils can then be asked to construct their complex sentences using this pattern, and experi-
ment with different clause positioning.

5. Text-level work – Year 6

Objective: to use different genres as models to write.

Have on the screen/whiteboard an extract from a pre-twentieth-century text. Read this with
the class and discuss what makes it rather difficult to read. Show them how you are able to
change difficult words and/or phrases for simpler, more modern equivalents. For example,
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

the following extract from Treasure Island:

‘Well, then,’ said he, ‘this is the berth for me. Here you matey,’ he cried to the man who trundled the
barrow; `bring up alongside and help up my chest. I’ll stay here a bit,’ he continued. ‘I’m a plain man;
rum and bacon and eggs is what I want, and that head up there for to watch ships off. What you
mought call me? You mought call me captain. Oh, I see what you’re at – there;’ and he threw down
three or four gold pieces on the threshold. ‘You can tell me when I’ve worked through that,’ says he,
looking as fierce as a commander.

might become:

‘Well, then,’ he said, `this is the place for me. Here you mate,’ he cried to the man who pushed the
cart; ‘come here and help up my chest. I’ll stay here a bit,’ he continued. ‘I’m a plain man; rum and

135

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 Teaching Literacy

bacon and eggs are what I want, and that cliff up there to watch for ships. What should you call me?
You should call me captain. Oh, I see what you want – there;’ and he threw down three or four gold
pieces on the counter. ‘You can tell me when I’ve used all that up,’ he said, looking as fierce as a
commander.

They could continue this activity later in groups.

Guided writing with word-processors

A group involved in guided writing can work in pairs on a writing task with the guidance
they need having already been set up on their computers. There are a number of ways of
achieving this:

1. Use computer versions of writing frames (Lewis and Wray 1997) to scaffold writing in
particular forms. Electronic versions of frames can very easily be altered and extended by
teachers or pupils.
For the ‘Story’ genre, for instance, you might begin with a frame which provides a lot of
support:

Once upon a time there were three . . .

There was a Mummy, a Daddy and a . . .

They all lived in a little house in the . . .

Later, the support can be reduced and variations in openings and link words can be encour-
aged.

From a distance the island seemed . . .

When we got closer, however, . . .

We landed on a sandy beach and . . .

Exploring the island, we discovered . . .

A development from writing frames is the use of starter paragraphs. For storywriting, these
might take the form of two paragraphs from different parts of the story, the pupils’ task being
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

to insert the text which goes between them. For example:

She got out of bed very quietly, opened the door without a squeak and started to walk down the
passage. She could hear her Grandma snoring. She moved very carefully and very slowly. Finally she
found the door to the kitchen. It opened with a gentle creak.

The dog barked ferociously as she climbed back over the wall. She took no notice. She held the parcel
carefully under one arm and dropped down into the garden.

2. Electronic frames might also include pop-up comments with extra vocabulary lists (in
Microsoft Word, this can be achieved by ‘Insert – Comment’ on the toolbar). A similar effect
can be achieved by including hypertext links which, when clicked, produce vocabulary lists
(type ‘Control + K’ and then the name of the file of vocabulary).

136

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 chapter 10 Writing electronic texts

3. Provide differentiated support through the use of hidden prompts that a child can access as
he/she works. In Microsoft Word, text can be marked as ‘hidden’ and is only revealed when
the ‘Show/Hide’ button is clicked (this button usually has the symbol ¶ on it). A writing
frame such as the following might be used to guide the writing of a set of instructions (the
italicised text would be hidden).

You are going to write instructions for learning to do archery.

Learning to do archery

List the equipment you needed here – you could use bullet points for each item:
Equipment needed:

Now think of any rules or instructions you were given. Imagine you are explaining these to someone
who has never done this activity. What tense will you write in?
First,

Next,

Then,

Finally,

Now complete your instructions by writing some guidelines on how to pack away and care for the
equipment you have used.
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

FIGURE 10.1 A computer-based writing frame

137

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 Teaching Literacy

4. Ask pupils to manipulate text which has already been entered into the computer. For exam-
ple, if the objective of the activity is for pupils to organise letters into simple paragraphs (Y3
T3 T23), the teaching point is paragraphing, not writing a letter, so time would be saved in
presenting pupils with a range of letters they were required to paragraph.

5. Use specially designed commercial software to support writing (I Can Write, from Resource
Education, and Clicker 4, from Crick Software, are two packages that are based upon the writ-
ing frame idea).

Group work with word-processors: some suggested activities

Pupils can:

n select and drag text to match rhyming words, to complete sentences, to unscramble
muddled sentences etc.;
n identify different categories of words, e.g. highlighting all nouns pink, all pronouns green
etc.;
n alter existing text using, for example, alternative adjectives, verbs, synonyms etc., and
using different coloured text for any changes;
n use cut-and-paste to reinstate the correct order of a short story in which the order of the
paragraphs has been changed;
n use the Find and Replace function (Control + K in Microsoft Word) to replace overused
words such as ‘said’ and ‘nice’;
n use the Find function on its own to search for common spelling patterns, e.g. all words
ending in ‘ing’ or containing ‘ea’;

Desktop publishing
In the world outside schools the last 15 years have seen the dramatic growth of the use of
computer systems for desktop publishing, that is the production of books, journals, news-
papers etc. by writers themselves, without the intermediate stage of specialist typesetting.
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

The technology to make this possible had a vast impact in the commercial world, especially
on those sections of the workforce such as print workers whose skills were thereby made
redundant.
The potential of this technology has also been realised by schools, many of whom were
quick to see the potential of desktop publishing as a vehicle for the production of their chil-
dren’s work. Desktop publishing can be seen as providing extra facilities for the output of
children’s work on the computer. Several of these facilities have important implications.
The first concerns purpose. Because of some of the features discussed below, an important
use of desktop publishing is in the production of class/school newspapers or magazines.
These by their nature are intended for other people to read, and their producers are therefore
involved in ‘public’ writing. This adds a dimension of purposefulness to writing which

138

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 chapter 10 Writing electronic texts

children may occasionally not perceive in their other writing tasks. The public nature of this
writing in turn gives children greater incentive to improve its quality and accuracy. Public
writing implies also that an audience has to be taken into account. Children who are aware
that what they produce is going to be read by a variety of other people can be alerted to the
needs of these audiences, and encouraged to reconsider the form and content of their writing
in the light of these needs.
A further feature of the production of newspapers and magazines through desktop
publishing is that these media are generally very familiar to children. They recognise their
distinctive features and appreciate the facility that desktop publishing gives them to emulate
these ‘real life’ features. An important stage in the production of a class newspaper or maga-
zine should be the close study by children of published ones. In the course of this study, many
literacy skills can be taught and practised, from the critical reading of advertisements to the
factors influencing the impact of headlines. Children may also be introduced to other features,
although from experience in using desktop publishing packages with children, it appears
they are already much more aware than might be imagined of the importance of such features
as the typeface used, the design of the layout or the style of writing demanded in particular
formats. Likewise, one of the benefits of using these packages with children is a sharpening of
this awareness.
The desktop publishing environment has some features which make it particularly useful
for realistic writing formats. One of the most important of these is the cut-and-paste facility.
By using this, sections of pages can be electronically lifted from one place and moved or
copied to another. This is an extension of the provisionality of writing mentioned earlier.
Anything children produce can always be changed in a number of ways, and they quickly
grasp the power of this, and experiment with format.
Another feature which desktop publishing makes possible is the mixing of text and
pictures. Users can grab pictures from camcorders and digital cameras, and import these into
the desktop publishing environment. Once under the control of the computer software, these
pictures can be manipulated in various ways: stretched, enlarged, reduced, rotated, reversed,
chopped into pieces and overlaid or interspersed with text. This is a facility of immense
potential, which enables users of small personal computers to produce pages which are
almost indistinguishable from those of real newspapers.
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

One group of Year 5 pupils used their class digital camera to take pictures of some toys.
These pictures were then imported into Word to illustrate a story they wrote collaboratively
for the Year 2 class in their school. One page from this story is given in Figure 10.2.

Hypertexts
New technology also makes possible a kind of writing which could not be done using tradi-
tional print and paper methods. We have all become very familiar, through our use of the
internet, with the texts which characterise the World Wide Web – hypertexts. Traditional texts
are usually designed to be read in one way. They are linear, with a well-defined start and a

139

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 Teaching Literacy

The dragon roared as

the brave knight
charge d across the
castle drawbridge.

FIGURE 10.2 A desktop published story

well-defined end. Hypertexts, on the other hand, as explained in the previous chapter, are
designed to be non-sequential. By using links the reader can navigate to different parts of the
text and the sequence in which the text is read is determined by the reader. As we have seen,
this makes a tremendous difference to the reader. There can be many sequences to the read-
ing; there need not be one start to the text but several, and there need not be one ending. The
reader is put in control of his/her own reading of the text to a greater extent, and passive
reading is all but impossible. This active involvement with a text’s shape and meaning blurs
the traditional distinction between reader and writer, but it does, in turn, make the job of the
reader more complex. Not only does the reader have to make active decisions about how to
proceed through a hypertext (it is usually impossible to merely ‘turn the pages’), but he/she
also has to contend with a range of alternative textual material. Readers may be familiar with
pictures and diagrams in traditional texts, but hypertexts, being computer-based, can also
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

include segments of audio, video and other moving graphics, all of which contribute some
extra potential meaning to a text.
If the reading of hypertexts poses extra problems for the reader, then the writing of success-
ful hypertexts poses difficulties for the writer. But involving pupils in creating their own
websites, for example, can significantly enhance their abilities to read critically and effectively
the new texts they are presented with through ICT.
As a first step to this, many teachers offer pupils the chance to design and write their own
web pages. Figure 10.3 shows the page designed by nine-year-old Marisa to show off her
poem about winter. This page was designed in a specialised web page creation computer
program and, in addition to the skills demanded in the writing of traditional text, it required
Marisa to:

140

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 chapter 10 Writing electronic texts

FIGURE 10.3 Marisa’s web page

n scan and save her winter picture;

n embed this picture electronically within her poem;
n locate a snowflake picture and embed this within the poem;
n select a suitable font for her poem;
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

n decide on a layout for the poem and implement this within the software package; and
n publish her poem to her class website.

These are all complex skills and there are many adults, accomplished in other aspects of writ-
ing, who would not know how to do any of them.
But that is not all there is to website design which, principally, involves the creation of
hypertexts. Like conventional writing, a hypertext requires planning. A collection of pages
randomly linked together provides neither pleasure nor enlightenment for the reader. Nor
will it allow the writer to transmit all his/her ideas fully to the reader. In planning a conven-
tional essay, the writer builds a linear trail for the reader: the points should follow each other
in a straight and logical line. But a genuine hypertext involves planning spatially, thinking

141

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.
 Teaching Literacy

about which pages (or parts of pages) should be linked to each other, or to external sources. A
useful way of beginning to create this kind of text is to draft out on paper an outline of how
the text might develop. Teachers can encourage pupils to do this graphically by drawing their
main introductory screen in the middle of a large page, and then sketching out the subsidiary
pages and indicating the links by arrows. They can then draw on a separate sheet the design
for each page, as a story board.
Hypertext is a mixed medium. It can involve varying fonts, sizes and colours. It can also
use graphic elements such as photographs, clip art, scanned drawings etc. Even more impor-
tantly, the writer needs to think about breaking up the page into blocks of text, each of which
relates to other blocks, but which could, potentially, stand by itself.
In hypertext, writers compose small units of text and link them together. On the one hand,
this eases the stress of writing, allowing the writer to work on discrete units, rather than a
single long text. On the other hand, it means that hypertext writers need to pay particular
attention to ‘arrivals’ and ‘departures’ – the first sentences their readers encounter in arriving
at a text block and the last sentences they encounter as they leave. Each text block, of whatever
length, needs to be shaped like a mini-essay, with a beginning, a middle and an end.
Reading a computer screen can be very distracting. The colours may be too bright, the
background too distracting, the type may be too small, or it may be in such a continuous block
that the eye loses its place on the screen. Hypertext writers need to choose restful, clear
colours for their text and background. Writing is easier to read if it is broken up into small
blocks, like in a newspaper.
The hypertext link is the equivalent of the TV’s remote control. If readers get bored for a
moment, they can instantly be somewhere else. Writers can combat this by thinking carefully
about the links they include. Some include links only to the pages they have created them-
selves (many commercial organisations take this approach in their websites) but that ignores
the potential of hypertext to link multiple sources of information.
A simple linking scheme is to give each page, or text block, a heading and to provide links
to each of these at the bottom, or down the left-hand side, of each page. This allows the reader
to get an overview of the entire document and then to select his/her own route through it.
This is not the place to give a full analysis of the difficulties of writing readable hypertext,
but hopefully enough points have been raised in this section to suggest that this new medium
Copyright © 2005. David Fulton Publishers. All rights reserved.

for writing brings with it its own challenges and problems. Writing is no longer quite the
same process, and in that fact lies much of the excitement of the new medium.

Conclusion
In this chapter I have tried to look at the potential of new technology from a writer’s point
of view. Writing with word-processors, desktop publishing and using hypertext all carry
immense potential for writers to explore new ways of conveying their ideas. They also each
bring new problems and it is the role of the teacher to begin to help learners solve these
problems.

142

Wray, D. (2005). Teaching and learning literacy : Reading and writing texts for a purpose. David Fulton Publishers.
Created from univ-people-ebooks on 2024-03-11 19:25:30.