Annotation of a piece of non-fiction using the ‘insert comment’ and ‘tiling’ functions in Microsoft Word to teach authorial voice as a preparation for writing.

The concept 
 
A teacher in a comprehensive school said:

My L4/5 borderline Y7 students find it difficult to see that direct statement is not the only way writers communicate their opinions.  They also tend to rely on direct statements when writing opinion pieces of their own. I want them to use a wider range of strategies when presenting their views and to be able to recognise the use of those strategies in the writing of others.

She decided to address the issue by devising a series of lessons using ICT to teach the following:

• Authorial viewpoint and voice are important elements of a piece of writing.
• Writers give voice to their viewpoints through controlling content, style and tone.
• How to express opinions more subtly, effectively and persuasively than by the use of direct statement alone.

Why use ICT?

The teacher wanted pupils to respond very directly to a text and be guided to comment on the techniques that had been used.
 
In order to achieve this, she chose a text which exemplified the kind of writing that would provide pupils with an effective model. They had been reading the novel Skellig and so were using a text about home-schooling written in the form of a diary. On the surface, the text appeared to be objective but the tone, language and selection of information clearly indicated that the writer felt that home-schooling was preferable to school.

ICT enabled her to inset questions and prompts into the text as comments linked to particular words, phrases and sentences. Pupils could respond to these prompts using Add comment function. This provided a powerful connection between evidence and explanation.

She also wanted pupils to be able to make initial notes as a prelude to developing these into a more extended analytical answer focussing on the techniques the writer had used to convey her views. ICT enabled an efficient way of staging the process of responding to text.

In order to move on to the second stage of the sequence, pupils used the Horizontal Tiling function to allow them to see the annotated text at the same time as planning their answer. This enabled them to copy and paste quotations into their writing along with the comments which provided the explanation of the quotation’s contribution to the effectiveness of the text.
 
The Lessons

Learning objectives and related assessment focuses
7R4: make brief, clearly organised notes of key points for later use;
7R8:  infer and deduce meanings using evidence in the text, identifying where and how meanings are implied;
7R13:  identify, using appropriate terminology the way writers of non-fiction match language and organisation to their intentions, for example in campaign material;
7R14:  recognise how writers’ language choices can enhance meaning, for example repetition, emotive vocabulary, varied sentence structure or line length, sound effects;
7WR 19: write reflectively about a text, taking account of the needs of others who might read it.

Reading
AF3: deduce, infer or interpret information, events or ideas from texts;
AF5:  explain and comment on writers’ uses of language, including grammatical and literary features at word and sentence level;
AF6: identify and comment on writers’ purposes and viewpoints and the overall effect of the text on the reader;

Lesson One

Starter
Put two sentences on the board. One of which is a direct assertion of a point of view. The other should imply a point of view without stating it.

I hate going to meetings

Unusually, for a meeting, this one was fascinating.

Ask pupils to explore the differences between the two opinions and have a go at writing a few of their own.

Introduction 
Pupils log onto Word, open a document prepared by the teacher, which has questions and prompts added using the comment function. This will be in a shared folder.  They then save it to their own documents folder to allow each child to save their own changes.  Pupils add comments by overtyping initial ideas in the comments boxes.

Development 
Pupils open a blank Word document and use the tiling function to allow them to see both documents at once. In pairs, they then compose a paragraph answering the question: “What view of education is expressed by the writer of the text and how do we know?”

Plenary 
Pupils select one passage from the text that they think is especially effective in giving an opinion without stating it. Ask a range of pupils to present the comments they made about the selected passage. End the lesson with a short discussion about why a text written in this way might be more persuasive than a piece of direct opinion.
 

Suggestions for discussion/ consideration

• What benefits does this approach have over a traditional pen and paper approach?
• Could you add in a focus on PEE to help them with the final piece of writing?
• Could they be asked to re-organise the points in order of effectiveness (as some of the more able pupils did when doing the final piece of writing) or to group together examples that were using the same technique or making the same point?

Lesson Two

Starter 
Remind pupils of the plenary of the previous lesson and ask them to do a very quick piece of writing. Give them a few bald statements like ‘I hate football’ or ‘school uniform is a very important factor in the success of a school’ and ask them, in pairs,  to write a paragraph in which the opinion is implied rather than stated. Read out a few successful examples, asking pupils to explain how they have composed their writing to imply the opinion.

Introduction 
Explain that pupils will write a piece expressing the opposite view of education to that expressed in the text used in the previous lesson.  In a class discussion, share reasons why school education is better than home education.

Collect points in one column, and list authorial techniques other than making a direct statement of their opinion in the central column. In the final column, model how the initial point might be worded using a range of techniques.

Development 
Ask pupils to select another point from the list and replicate the process of composition demonstrated by the teacher.  They are not allowed to make direct statements of their point of view.

Plenary 
Pupils swap their writing and peer assess it, using the following prompts:
 

• Which elements were the most effective and which need further development?
• How well is the reader able to infer the writer’s viewpoint from the tone of the writing?

Finally, make the point that direct statement alone is rarely the most effective way of getting your point across.

In the third lesson, pupils planned and wrote the whole opinion piece, using the techniques they had learned.

Suggestions for discussion/ consideration

• Could pupils choose their topic rather than simply writing the opposite view to the text they read (which might not be their opinion)?
• Would it be worthwhile to collate a small anthology of examples of effective opinion writing for pupils to read during the unit?

Evaluation

When interviewed, a significant number of pupils said that they found the process useful because they were able to change their responses and added extra information more easily than when using pen and paper.  They liked the comments boxes and the way the highlighting and questions directed them to focus on key phrases.  They also found having the two documents open at once useful and most copied and pasted quotes to use rather than typing them out.  Pupils also said that it made it much clearer what they were meant to do when it came to producing their own writing.

The teacher found that all pupils made significant progress when commenting on the text. Secure L4s made the most progress whereas insecure L4s found it hard to sustain their viewpoint without lapsing into direct statement.

Developments

The following areas were considered for future development:

• With more practice (or with pupils above L5) the highlighting and questions/prompts could be dispensed with or pupils could provide questions/prompts for their peers
• Pupils could add comments to own/each other’s texts, starting with the sentence stem:  (I wanted the reader to think/feel...).

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