'Planning your writing' tutor notes

The 'Planning your writing' topic area aims to help learners revise and remember useful writing tips.

How does this tie in with the curriculums?

• England
  Wt/L1.1 - plan and draft writing where the context requires careful thought.
  Wt/L1.6 - proof-read and revise to correct grammar, punctuation and spelling, locating omissions, repetitions and errors.
  
• Wales
  As England.
• Northern Ireland
  As England.
• Scotland
  See www.aloscotland.com for details of the Scottish curriculum.

In this Skillswise module you'll find...

Planning your writing factsheets
Fifteen factsheets include help on how to organise and record your ideas and draft letters. One of the worksheets also provides useful tips on appropriate language for each writing scenario.

Planning your writing worksheets
There are nine printable worksheets presenting various ways of helping leaners improve their writing skills. Including lists, flow charts, spider diagrams and wriitng frames to plan your writing. One of the worksheets also includes tips on how to plan and write an e-mail.

Virtual Traveller game
Learners are given the opportunity to listen to a short or long version of an audio recording of a trip from around the globe in this writing tool. As they listen, learners may like to jot down notes and use one of the planning methods previously covered to help them write about their trip. Audio transcripts of the trips can be found here:
Cornwall: long    short
Diving in the Great Barrier Reef: long   short
Amazon trek: long   short
New York: long   short
Egyptian pyramids: long   short

Technical help:

To get the most out of this topic area you need the following 'plug-ins':

• Flash
  The game in this module uses the Flash browser plug-in. This is free to download and should only take a few minutes. You can follow the BBC WebWise instructions to download it to your machine.
  Find out more.
  If you don't have Flash the same learning points are covered in the quiz and in the worksheets and factsheets.

If you are new to the web, why not try the BBC WebWise online course, Becoming WebWise? It's free, you can do it in your own time from any computer and it will take you through everything you need to know to use the web successfully in your teaching.
Find out more about WebWise.

You can find out more about the technical requirements for Skillswise in our Help - Technical Information section.

Taking it further:

With Skillswise
Don't forget to visit Lesson plans and Teaching inspirations for more ideas on how to help learners with their writing.

With the web
Here's a few suggestions of other places where you might find resources that you can adapt to plan your writing.

• My Story
  The BBC is looking for the most remarkable real-life stories in the UK. Tell yours on the My Story website. Yu can find resources to support the competition in the raw partners area.
• Casualty
  Skillswise has a set of worksheets featuring characters from this popular television series. Listen to the audio and then write about how the story develops in each of the answer boxes. Look at Worksheets 1 & 2. You can play the audio as many times as you want, in order to write down any useful information.
• Plain English Campaign
  The Plain English campaign has lots of useful guides on how and when to use words accurately, and how to improve your writing to get your message across.
• Writing Web for Adults
  This site provides fun and challenging games to build confidence, and help learners improve their spelling and writing skills.

Please note that the BBC isn't responsible for the content found on other websites.