For each case, we have analysed the practice in the classroom, in the light of the discussion during the planning workshop (Stage 2), with a particular focus on children’s engagement and also how the teacher has incorporated and used digital resources to support the development of children’s narrative writing. 

The Pedagogic Principles listed are not proposed as a definitive set of ideas; neither are many of them new! They are presented as a set of starting points for consideration.

The principles listed relate to the specific contexts within which we worked, and are therefore constrained by these contexts to some extent. We appreciate that the ideas are generalised and do not take account of children with a range of specific needs; however, we hope that they may offer starting points for thinking about how you might wish to introduce digital resources to build children’s enjoyment and engagement in narrative writing. 

Some Pedagogic Principles are presented as suggestions; some are presented as statements about what we observed. They are starting points for thinking about your own practice. 

Please note: the term ‘traditional pedagogies’ is used to refer to the existing pedagogies used in the classrooms, as observed in lessons, and as described by the teachers during our planning workshop. In both schools, we observed expert teaching from very experienced teachers/ literacy leads, who drew on deep understanding of how to promote children’s writing. This was based on the development of school policy over time that has been informed by the original pedagogies presented in the National Literacy Strategy; the ‘Talk for writing’ approach that developed from this; and the curriculum and assessment requirements, currently in place.

• Digital resources can contribute to the promotion of children’s overall engagement within a storywriting community and world, to complete a narrative writing activity.
• The teacher’s role shifts through a unit of work involving digital resources, from director to collaborator and participant.
• Children can be supported to plan, compose, transcribe and revise through their engagement with digital resources. All stages of the traditional writing process can be supported with digital resources – Not just transcription.
• Children engage and sustain interest in writing units when digital resources are introduced.
• The power of the story is central in a unit of work that involves digital resources. It is the story and being in the storywriting world that capture the children’s interest; digital resources are part of this, but do not drive this.
• Children’s literacies are truly multimodal as they compose with digital and traditional resources over time. This involves listening, watching, interacting, decoding, talking, meaning making, planning, composing, transcribing, reviewing. Existing models of writing are not sufficient to capture this.
• Building a storywriting world can involve traditional and digital resources together, along with existing and adapted pedagogies for teaching writing. New pedagogy is not needed.
• Pedagogies involving digital resources can enrich existing pedagogies for writing.
• Digital resources can be central to collaborative/ talk driven pedagogies that build a sense of community within a storywriting world.
• Collaboration in a storywriting world that uses digital resources involves more-than-talk; it involves looking, commenting, sharing…
• Writing with digital resources can be part of a sustained writing event that is made up of micro-writing activities.
• Writing with digital resources is collaborative and community-building, due to how learners work with and share ideas and resources.
• Sharing in the writing process with digital resources is peer-driven, as well as teacher directed.
• Children orchestrate the use of digital and traditional writing resources, to complete tasks.
• The success of a unit of work involving digital resources needs to be evaluated in relation to the process, and not just the product, of writing.

• Find out what experiences children have had with particular digital resources, e.g. Padlet.
  
• Schedule informal experience with the digital resource (play-based) to build familiarity, as a building block to more formal learning.
• Make sure that the ‘log-in’ process will work for children, in advance of the lesson.
• Check the integrity of the resource as a learning tool.
• Create excitement for the digital resource, e.g. by playing music from it to create anticipation.
• Allow time for children to talk about the digital resource, and to settle, as part of a warm-up for the literacy task, e.g. reading with an ebook as a model for writing to follow.
• Plan for preliminary micro-activities, e.g. partner talk about what can be seen, as part of building the sustained storywriting world and community.
• Scaffold the use of digital resources for composing by rehearsing formal skills needed, e.g. grammatical skills, first.

• Allow space for digital resources to be accessed alongside paper and pens, to promote children’s movement across resources, e.g. paper between pair of children with Chromebook each.
• Organise children in working pairs, ideally with their own digital resources and paper/ pens between them.
• Encourage collaboration as storyworld makers, by the positioning of resources.
• Expect a unit of work to develop over extended periods of time, when incorporating digital resources.
• Allow time for play, labour and the creation of the storywriting world and community.
• Allow time for children to experience resources before expecting them to watch and listen to demonstrations and instructions.
• Give children time to play-talk their way into the writing activity with digital resources.
• Plan to introduce digital resource-specific vocabulary alongside narrative vocabulary, e.g. ‘icon’.
• Prepare model resources and outcomes to share as a confidence builder, and to help set children’s expectations for what is expected when composing using digital resources.

• Children will be excited and collaborative as part of their learning with digital resources, e.g. as they look at each other’s screens.
• Children will move at their desks – to look at each other’s screens. Movement will become part of being a writer.
• Establish clear ground rules for what is required/ allowed when using digital resources.
• Plan to prohibit interaction with digital resources at key times, to allow partner talk/ teacher direction.
• Ask children to close digital resources when their attention needs to be refocused/ focused on the teacher/ other children.
• Use of familiar approaches (e.g. shared writing on the IWB/ flipchart) can be used to refocus children and calm excitement.
• Traditional resources can be used to scaffold activities on digital resources, e.g. checklists on flipchart/ working wall.
• Develop routines for management of digital resources over time. Practice may be needed.
• Children will need to ‘play their way’ into using some digital resources. This can be considered as part of the composing process.
• Release instructions in a staged way. Break activities into small stages (micro-writing) to allow refocusing.
• Accept that there will be noise as part of the writing process. Noise and excited chatter/ bodily movement are part of the writing process with digital resources.
• Classroom management is assisted by the use of digital resources, as children do not ‘finish’ working in a clear-cut way. The resource continues to engage them.

• Adopt existing approaches for shared/ guided work with digital resources, e.g. use of staged activities/ teacher modelling/ shared composition.
• Adopt existing approaches for independent/ partner work, e.g. familiar style comprehension questions as part of ereading ahead of writing, to reduce the overload from working in a new digital context.
• Use of digital resources can be interspersed with more traditional approaches; it does not have to be one or the other, e.g. teacher modelling on an IWB can lead to children composing on Chromebooks.
• Children will develop new skills for digital resources, e.g. navigating an ebook, alongside existing decoding and meaning making skills (prediction, association, understanding etc.).
• While children navigate across resources, the digital resource may serve to anchor the writing activity, as a focus point/ cohesive device that brings everything together.
• Specific multimodal features of a digital resource (sound/ animation/ movement) can promote deep immersion in the storyworld.
• Specific multimodal features of a digital resource can promote intertextual connections (to film/ television/ games etc.), deepening and enriching meaning making as a reader and as a part of the writing process.
• Due to rich prior engagement afforded by digital resources, children will draw on the previous activities, as part of the writing process.

• Accept that the teacher’s role may vary (from being front and central), and even compete with the digital resources for children’s focus.
• Provide staged modelling and demonstration of how to as well as what to, e.g. how to post in Padlet.
• Do not presume children will use digital resources intuitively. Modelling and demonstration is needed.
• The teacher’s role is central at times, e.g. a high level of teacher control is needed to achieve staged progress towards using an app for composing a timeline.
• The teacher’s role shift from being the locus of control to being used as a resource, alongside the full set of resources involved (digital and traditional).
• The teacher’s presence (and scaffolding) can still be felt when children work collaboratively and independently, e.g. when they are audible above the hum of work, as they talk one-to-one.
• The teacher provides primary scaffolding for the writing process; not the digital resource. The teacher’s role remains central to the success of the activity.
• The teacher’s role switches from being an instructor and modeller, to being a participant in the storywriting world.
• The teacher works inside the storywriting world, as well as alongside and in front of children.

• Children’s engagement with the digital resource and each other may seem as if it is not focused on the learning objective.
• Excitement from the use of digital resources may permeate more traditional writing activities.
• Children’s attention can shift quickly from one resource to another (in the writing moment), e.g. from Padlet to the film/ interactive story.
• Children’s attention can shift quickly from resource to teacher, although at times, children will need support to refocus attention, e.g. by being asked to close Chromebooks.
• Children can focus across different distances and proximities with ease, e.g. shifting attention from Chromebook to IWB.
• The children’s role and agency shifts when learning with digital resources as opposed to when learning using traditional resources.
• e-reading to become familiar with a genre for writing, e.g. fantasy narrative, is appealing to children who are screen-keen.
• Children share what they are doing using digital resources, and this builds a community of writers, as partners, and as part of a storywriting community.
• Partner/ peer talk is instrumental to the engagement with the resource and in the storywriting activity.
• Digital resources afford children agency as writers, despite strong direction/ scaffolding by the teacher, which promotes engagement and ownership.
• Children are physically comfortable working with digital resources, e.g. Chromebooks/ Ipads, as they can be close and intensely focused on the screen.
• Children’s engagement can manifest as bodily movement/ talk/ noise, as they interact within the storywriting community and world.
• Children may talk directly to the resource as a form of ‘resource-talk’, e.g. addressing the characters on screen.
• Children’s attention may switch back and forth from their screen to their partner’s, as part of the individual composing process.
• Children watch and imitate each other as part of the writing process.
• Children engage in three places: the storywriting world of the story itself; the storywriting community of the classroom; and the storymaking partnership between the digital resource, traditional resource and working partner.
• Children occupy a range of roles/ positions as they build to becoming a storywriter and teller, e.g. observer/participant in the storyworld; critic of the storyworld and its form/ events/ characters; narrator who tells the story; curator who builds the story; composer who makes the story.