Changing stories: Linguistically-informed assessment of development in narrative writing

Variable achievements are not only common in students’ writing but pose challenges for teachers seeking to acknowledge these and foster next steps in literacy teaching. If teachers are to ‘lead development’ (Vygotsky, 1978), they need knowledge about how different text types function and what progression in learning to compose these looks like. Drawing on data from a large research project investigating the contribution of systemic functional grammatics to student writing, the paper considers the interplay of factors at work in student writing and what a linguistically informed approach to writing pedagogy offers teachers keen to foster development in primary classrooms. The paper addresses two key questions: (i) What kind of framework is needed if we are to take account of positive but embryonic developments in student writing? (ii) How can the framework be used by teachers to foster next steps in students’ writing? It may be possible to change the story currently dominating assessment in an era of high-stakes international testing focused so strongly on measurement rather than growth.