Creating a reading community in the classroom

ABSTRACT

This essay examines a half-term of Year 9 work on An Inspector Calls, with a particular focus on group discussion, writing in role and class reading of the text. I argue that extensive talking before writing is an invaluable way to elicit pupil insight; I then argue that this is necessarily a collaborative endeavour. I then go on to contrast this experience of the classroom with the (2014) English national curriculum’s positioning of pupils and emphasis on the individual.

KEYWORDS:

• Sociability
• collaboration
• talk
• writing
• work in role

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. The names of pupils have been replaced with culturally appropriate pseudonyms.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Rosa Price

Rosa Price teaches English at a school in north London. She studied English at the University of Cambridge and completed her PGCE at the Institute of Education, UCL. This essay is a version of her final PGCE assignment.