Writing Development (Open University Press)

This book provides us with sensitive measures for understanding what is happening in writing and applying that understanding to its assessment and, more importantly, to the development of young people as writers. Roslyn Arnold's psychodynamic and interactive approach springs from case studies with children - followed through a four year period - and gives her and us strategies for appropriate interventions in the classroom and a detailed, practical method of assessing writing and its development. She suggests how we can engage students' tacit abilities to express themselves, reduce the inhibiting constraints on writing development, and encourage the greater writing abilities revealed when children engage in real writing tasks involving authentic dialogue with their peers. She argues for a theory and philosophy which provide guidelines about writing development and to the desirable processes and outcomes of a truly integrated and developmentally sound writing programme.