History as a foreign language: can we teach Year 11 pupils to write with flair?

• Published in: Teaching history (London) no. 163; pp. 35 - 42
• Main Author: Simmonds, Claire
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: London The Historical Association 01.06.2016; Historical Association
• Subjects: Academic Achievement; Academically Gifted; Classroom Communication; Coffins; Content Area Writing; Cultural Capital; Curricula; Educational counseling; Educational Needs; Essays; Foreign Countries; Grade 10; History Instruction; Instructional Effectiveness; Language; Learning; Lexicology; Listening; Listening Skills; Literacy; Literary genres; National Curriculum; Nominalization; Progress Monitoring; Quality; Reading; Reading instruction; Scaffolding (Teaching Technique); Secondary School Students; Special Needs Students; Students; Students with Disabilities; Syntax; Teaching; Teaching Methods; Theory Practice Relationship; United Kingdom (England); Writing; Writing Evaluation; Writing Improvement; Writing Instruction; Writing Processes; United Kingdom (England)
• ISSN: 0040-0610; 2398-1571

Disappointed that the use of the "PEEL" writing scaffold had led her Year 11 students to write some rather dreary essays, Claire Simmonds reflected that a lack of specific training on historical writing might be to blame. Drawing on genre theory and the work of the history teaching community, Simmonds attempted to theorise the discipline-specific characteristics of "historical" writing. In this article, Simmonds explores how her teaching of writing processes, which draw on syntax and lexis in a manner typically associated with English as an Additional Language, can help pupils to produce more sophisticated written explanations.