Writing, grammar and the body: a cognitive stylistics framework for teaching upper primary narrative writing

Abstract

This paper synthesises aspects of functional grammar and cognitive stylistics to posit a theoretical approach to the teaching of the grammar of narrative writing to upper primary and lower secondary students. It is argued the development of students' metalinguistic understanding is essential if they are to make informed language choices as they write. Cognitive stylistics is an embodied theory of grammar derived from literary studies, which is used here to construct a theoretical framework for teaching metalinguistic understanding in writing. The proposed framework includes concepts to support the way writers might focus their ‘readerly’ attention via devices such as ‘figure’ and ‘ground’, ‘scope’, ‘attentional windowing’ and ‘deixis’, to create narrative perspectives and interactions between narrative participants, by means of ‘clausal action chains’. The theory is premised on the idea that students can be taught to ‘embody’ the imagined narrative world, and make specific grammatical choices to effectively capture, for the reader, each element of their story. The framework outlines the role of the teacher, when supporting the student, in both the ‘embodiment’ of their narrative, and their grammatical decision‐making.

The year’s work in stylistics 2021

“…Combining functional grammar and cognitive stylistics, Healey and Gardener (2021) outline a theoretical approach to teaching the grammar of narrative to primary school children. Their research, published in Literacxy , argues that metalinguistic understanding is vital to ensuring that students make conscious choices in their writing.…”

Student teachers as writers: using an ‘immersive’ approach in ITE to build positive writers

“…A GRR approach to writing requires teachers to adopt the mantle of ‘the more knowledgeable other’ (Vygotsky, 1978) by demonstrating a variety of writerly roles such as ‘scribe’ and ‘editor’, but essential to a GRR mode of teaching is the confidence to spontaneously and explicitly verbalise metacognitive choices they make as they compose. Choices involve linguistic and aesthetic decisions at word, sentence and text level, but are also driven by the writer's intended meanings, purpose, the mood or tone being evoked, and an awareness of audience (Healey and Gardner, 2021).…”