'Pupils should write more.' Discuss
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Your support makes all the difference.The art of history essay-writing is in decline and government examination advisers are trying to revive it. Experts say teaching methods which often require pupils to produce no more than a few words or a paragraph at a time are threatening the traditional essay.
Changes in exams for 16-year-olds, with the ending of O-levels and the introduction of the GCSE, have also played down the essay's importance. The School Curriculum and Assessment Authority has just produced a booklet with tips for teachers of 11- to 14-year-olds on how to instruct pupils in the art of "extended writing" in history.
Nick Tate, the authority's chief executive, said: "We feel there has been a drift away from extended writing in history, particularly in terms of the GCSE exam ... In the old O-level history exam candidates had to write five essays in two and a half hours. When GCSE came in there was a feeling that people should be doing other things in history besides writing essays."
From next year, new rules for GCSE history will make it clear that all candidates have to answer at least one essay-type question. The booklet suggests ways in which pupils of all abilities in the first years of secondary school can be taught to produce essays and narrative writing by sorting, selecting and arranging their material.
It offers menus of "sentence starters" and contents for pupils to choose from and suggests they arrange cards which each contain a point to be included in an essay on why the Normans won the battle of Hastings.
Dr Tate said that expectations of what lower ability pupils could do were too modest. When the authority circulated examples of extended writing, some teachers had reacted with hostility, arguing that the work was too difficult for the less able.
Chris Husbands of Warwick University's Institute of Education, one of the consultants for the booklet, said it was not just exam changes which had led to problems over extended writing. "The vast majority of writing that kids get asked to do in school is pretty low level. It asks them to make short-term decisions and then write one-word or short sentence answers."
In the Seventies, he said, teachers had reacted against the tradition of dictating pages of notes by producing their own worksheets. "What was lost in the process was the sense of putting history back together."
Christine Counsell, chair of the Historical Association's secondary education committee, on whose work the booklet is based, said it showed how history could be used to improve literacy and thinking skills. History was one of the few subjects which still demanded extended analysis and discussion. She said: "For good reasons, teachers have sometimes swung too far towards making writing accessible."
Exam officials point out that the essay continues to play an important part in English courses.
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