Writing for Pleasure: Theory, Research and Practice

This book explores what writing for pleasure means, and how it can be realised as a much-needed pedagogy whose aim is to develop children, young people, and their teachers as extraordinary and life-long writers. The approach described is grounded in what global research has long been telling us are the most effective ways of teaching writing and contains a description of the authors’ own research project into what exceptional teachers of writing do that makes the difference.

The authors describe ways of building communities of committed and successful writers who write with purpose, power, and pleasure, and they underline the importance of the affective aspects of writing teaching, including promoting in apprentice writers a sense of self-efficacy, agency, self-regulation, volition, motivation, and writer-identity. They define and discuss 14 research-informed principles which constitute a Writing for Pleasure pedagogy and show how they are applied by teachers in classroom practice. Case studies of outstanding teachers across the globe further illustrate what world-class writing teaching is.

This ground-breaking text is essential reading for anyone who is concerned about the current status and nature of writing teaching in schools. The rich Writing for Pleasure pedagogy presented here is a radical new conception of what it means to teach young writers effectively today.

Ross Young is the founder of The Writing For Pleasure Centre. He holds an MA in applied linguistics in education. As a passionate writer-teacher, he now works around the UK and abroad helping teachers and schools develop extraordinary young writers.

Felicity Ferguson was a primary school teacher for 40 years, working as an EAL specialist, SENCO, deputy, and head teacher. A writer herself, she has MA degrees in applied linguistics and children’s literature and has been involved in a number of literacy-based projects, including children’s reading development.