The Role of Story in the Teaching of Writing

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Why experience of the language of story is an essential element in teaching creative writing at Key Stage 1 Introduction Language is central to education: it is the “medium of exchange in which education is conducted” (Bruner, 1986:121). When a teacher speaks to a student he/she mediates the meaning of the message through language; it is then further interpreted by the student who actively constructs its meaning. To facilitate universal understanding through language, it is necessary for children to interpret the meaning intended by the teacher. This is not as simple as it sounds, particularly in the early years of education, as the child brings to school his/her own experience of the world. The acquisition of language skills, in both oral and written form, is essential to allow children access to learning across the curriculum. This assignment will show how an exposure to the language of story plays a vital role in a child’s acquisition of the more formal constructs of the English language. Theories on the acquisition of language Bernstein’s research in the 1960’s explored the relationship between children’s academic achievement and their social background, in an attempt to explain why children from the lower classes were less likely to succeed in school than those from the middle classes. He attributed this lack of success to variations in language which led to children holding different world views, which affected their aspirations, attitudes and aptitudes for learning resulting in different levels of school performance (Wood, 1990:87). Thus Bernstein suggested that children were a product of social experience and that it was this rather than an innate biological difference that affected a child’s performance in school. The distinctions between the languages of the different social classes were seen by Bernstein to be more than just differences in
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