ABSTRACT

This chapter explains about the contexts for writing in school, and looks particularly at unassessed journals written, in part, for the teacher. In the Writing across the Curriculum project in 1976 a particular problem was to find good transactional writing in any quantity in any one class. The chapter also focuses on the written work from one school and has tried to set it throughout in its context of the particular teachers, the English department, the special project, and a particular class or year group. The Schools Commission funded the Senior English master to develop talk and personal writing as a means of assisting learning in all subjects. In addition, the 1978 topics suggested by the teachers were, Unemployment, Old age, your future career, Immigration, Primary or special education. The chapter explores that the contexts for writing in English in West Coast High School were similar in many ways to the contexts for writing in Social Studies in the British comprehensive school.