ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces the most common orientations teachers have towards the teaching of writing and of young writers. It gives a detailed overview of the presentational or skills-based view of writing, the naturalistic self-expressionist orientation, the structuralist and genre-based approach, the literature-based model, the critical literacy and multiliteracy perspective, and finally the environmental and community orientation. Discussion is had about how writing is perceived in each of these orientations, the relationship between the teacher and their pupils, the teachers’ curricular priorities, and the typical teaching strategies they might employ. The limitations of each approach are also examined and compared. Finally, it’s proposed that, whilst these orientations may seem to be in conflict with one another, it may actually be more profitable for teachers to consider how parts of each orientation can be utilised dynamically within a classroom pedagogy to help turn the tide of children’s historic underachievement in writing, and attend to their affective needs and to their indifference to or active dislike of writing.
