Actually, I have a question for Britton and his colleagues at the University of London. What initially prompted this project to examine British children's writing? Perhaps, their overall writing performance? However, I believe the results of this project is what led Britton and his colleagues to show teachers of writing how to expose children to other forms of writing; writing that is intellectually critical for a child to learn in order to successully interact with their world. For me, it was profound how Britton explained how writing does transfer from speech. But then, it does all make sense. After all, Britton, himself states, "...that young children rely upon speech for all that they want to communicate and that when they write 'before' going to school their wriing takes on the form of a 'construct' or a performance." (4)
Okay, here is when I am beginning to understand why Britton thinks the way he does. And now as the child enters a classroom, the child continues to transfer his speech to writing that is modeled in the classroom by the teacher. Thereby, a child is true to produce whatever the construct or performance as practiced. And it is this type of writing model that the child/student will continue to produce throughout the formal education writing years. Diplomatically and assertively is Britton for bringing his theory of writing development throught the various stages of: expressive, transactional, and poetic styles of discourse.
Most importantly, my thoughts here, are how clever is Britton to encourage and influence teachers that children must be submersed in volumes of writing opportunities to experience the flows of writing from transactional to expressive and poetic. As Britton puts it, "it will be moving out in that direction...required to merit the name 'literature'--...we can speculate...we do not have to agree." (16) What I have gleaned from Britton is to be alert to planning those volumes of writing opportunities allowing all those voices to be heard.
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