Fun with factual writing

2 min

Classroom Activities

Admin SEVEN STEPS

Many teachers ask us if the Seven Steps approach can be applied to informative writing such as recounts, science reports and factual writing.

The answer is a resounding YES!

In fact, the Seven Steps team – and some wonderful teachers – have been working out exactly how it looks if you use the Seven Steps to teach students all sorts of informative types of texts, from news articles to reports, radio or podcast scripts, documentary storyboards, factual explanations and descriptions.

Sizzling Starts and fascinating facts

One of the many things we realised is that a Sizzling Start is just as effective in a factual piece as in narrative and persuasive texts.

But we worked out that starting with an exciting fact (did you know that spiders can hold their breath?) is great, but writers also want to link that fact to a technique – such as starting with a sound, starting with action, beginning at a moment of change, asking a question or painting a vivid word picture – to make that fact really sizzle.

New to Seven Steps? Discover what they are

Writing prompts

Here are a few picture writing prompts for Step 1: Plan for Success, Step 2: Sizzling Starts and Step 3: Tightening Tension that are perfect for keeping your students practising daily.

Want more?

Access informative writing prompts for all of the Seven Steps in Teacher Hub. Each one comes with extra thinking prompts, video links and activity ideas to help students engage and practise these techniques.

Download all of our informative, narrative and persuasive writing prompts (complete with extra resources and activities) from the Teacher Hub Resource Library.

Looking for more? For more writing prompts keyed to the Seven Steps, follow our Pinterest Board.