Talk-Driven Draft

Whether you are guiding students through academic writing for examinations, preparing them for further study, or even just exploring the pleasure that comes from grappling with constructing a position paper, teaching young people to recognise where their writing needs to go next can be a challenge. This resource not only aims to encourage student ownership of ideas and idea development, but focuses on them recognising their own gaps in essay construction, addressing and refining their own work in the process.

The Talk-Driven Draft

The aim of this resource is to provide classroom teachers with a way to develop students’ academic writing through oracy. Utilising productive discussion allows students to co-construct ideas, build connections, and take the fear out of essay writing. In this resource, the discussion format is core to the development of essay content, but the value of its role is in this writing development that occurs after the discussion has closed.

The resource takes you through:

• The set up: ensuring students are well prepared for partaking in a fruitful discussion
• The discussion: a detailed overview of roles and responsibilities within the discussion and how it will take shape
• After the discussion: a clear pathway out of the discussion and into recognising personal contributions and areas for improvement
• Applying it to their writing: Taking all they have discovered and applying it to their essay writing, recognising areas for improvement and addressing them independently

This resource also provides hints and tips for reworking this activity for younger students in Secondary settings, encouraging teachers to utilise the Talk-Driven Draft to address students' fear of the blank page and to use oracy to support them on their academic writing journey.