This is the first article in a new series that demonstrates how grammar can be taught in a rich literature context. The first of the series is being provided as a free resource to coincide with the UKLA Grammar conference. Further resources will be provided on the member’s site. In this first paper, the wonderful book by Carol Ann Duffy called Lost Happy Endings can be used to teach quality grammar in context for a variety of year groups. At the heart of the project was the determination that grammar should be taught in context and through high quality books. Having worked with schools on grammar training in the locality, it had become clear that many teachers lacked the knowledge of what grammar could be explored through real books.
This is a chapter from the UKLA publication Literacy and Community: developing a primary curriculum through partnerships. It describes how a class teacher and a literacy consultant in a multilingual school in Birmingham developed a teaching sequence to explore identity and citizenship. The teacher, Katie Palmer, is now Deputy Head Teacher and Curriculum and Assessment Leader, and the school now has 356 children on roll. The book Literacy and Community invites readers to reflect on their own practice and the chapter ends with some prompt questions. If you find this article interesting, why not look in the UKLA bookshop for Literacy and Community for examples of partnerships with homes, parents and communities throughout the primary age range.
In an extended cross-curricular project, Years 3 and 4 create a poem scroll based on a traditional Bengali form of poetic narrative. Through drama, discussion and close examination of the original poem, the children came to understand the horrors of the tsunami and wrote and illustrated their own narrative poem, which they made into a scroll.
