Writing

Using nursery rhymes, jingles, songs and poems as a way into
writing
Janet Evans
This chapter investigates children’s interest in the nursery rhyme genre whilst at the
same time considers how children can be encouraged to write reflectively if they are
working on something that both stimulates and motivates them to want to write. After
reading a story book of nursery rhymes, a group of 6 and 7 year old children were
encouraged to consider what other adventures some of the main rhyme characters
might have. By talking about the rhymes, seeing an expert writer modelling the
writing process and writing collaboratively with the teacher and with each other, the
children wrote an “alternative” nursery rhyme book. They began to see writing as a
long term process which is recursive, takes time and effort but which is also very
rewarding especially when published in the form of a book.
Nursery Rhymes as a popular genre
Nursery rhymes have always been popular with children ... but why? Very often they
don’t relate to our contemporary life and frequently they seem to make no sense at all.
Yet the rhythm and rhyme of the sentences, the simple story lines, humorous
innuendoes and play on words make them good fun not only to recount but also to
sing along with other people. Books of nursery rhymes, poems and jingles have often
been given as presents on the birth of a child or on a baby’s christening day. Now
more than ever there is a tremendous choice on offer and rhyming poetry, verse and
books of songs to sing are all available for parents to purchase. Many adults have
pleasurable memories of sharing books when they were young children and are able to
go straight to a bookshelf and pick up an old, battered copy of their much loved
childhood nursery rhyme book.
Some of the original nursery rhymes were never written down but were passed from
generation to generation by word of mouth. Indeed many are extremely old, some
dating as far back as 500 BC e.g. Rain, rain, go away come again another day. The
apparent nonsense and innocence of some of these verses can sometimes belie more
sombre origins, as the words of Ring -a- ring o Roses show:
Ring a ring o roses
A pocket full of posies
A-tishoo! A-tishoo!
We all fall down.
This popular rhyme - ostensibly quite innocuous - describes the sudden deaths of
people succumbing to the Great Plague. The tell tale red circle on the skin or “ring of
roses”, and the sneezing, “A-tishoo! A-tishoo!” signified that the disease had been
caught. Carrying special herbs, “ the pocket full of posies” was thought to keep the
plague at bay but it infrequently worked. The effects of the Plague were so rapid and
severe that people often dropped dead in the street as they walked - hence the final
line, “we all fall down”. (Trussell-Cullen, 1989).
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We are often led to believe that in Victorian times fortunate youngsters went to sleep
whilst nursery rhymes and songs were being read and sung to them in bed. Indeed
some of the first books of nursery rhymes, rhyming verse, traditional stories and
poetry, often illustrated by such acclaimed illustrators as Kate Greenaway, Norman
Caldecott and Leslie Brookes were the ones which popularised the idea of sharing
such books with young children.
Iona and Peter Opie (1987) in their comprehensive documentation of children and
their playground rhymes and jingles also did a great deal to promote the importance of
exposing young children to nursery rhymes, jingles and songs. Originally much of this
exposure was for the pure pleasure of listening to stories and rhymes being told and
sung out loud; however the simple, ubiquitous nursery rhyme has more recently been
attracting attention in education circles for other, quite different reasons.
Linking nursery rhymes with writing
My personal interest in using nursery rhymes and jingles to teach reading to young
children, coupled with an awareness of the ongoing research into how educators can
effectively teach the process of writing, led me to link these two areas in some work I
was doing with 6 and 7 year old children. My aim was to share an enlarged text book
with the whole class of children followed by some written work to be done with a
mixed ability group of ten girls and boys. I wanted to examine their knowledge of
traditional nursery rhymes and jingles; would they know a lot of them and be able to
chant them or would they think that nursery rhymes were too babyish for children of
their age? I also wanted them to choose one of their favourite rhymes, and, taking the
main character(s) in the original rhyme, write a sequel, maybe in the form of the
further adventures of Jack and Jill, or Mary and her little lamb, or which ever rhyme
character they chose. My third intention was to observe the children organising their
narrative writing, offering structured help where applicable to enable the children to
become more effective writers.
To be able to write an adventure sequel the children needed to respond to the narrative
element of the rhymes and to explore their structure. I wondered if the rhymes would
be seen as short stories, some with very clear structures in terms of characters, setting,
plot, events and resolution, or if they would just be listened to, chanted and regarded
as simple verses for babies. I knew that I would need to talk with the children about
their favourite rhymes and the personalities of the characters in the rhymes. I also
knew that I would need to model each stage of the writing process for the children as
we progressed from our initial ideas to a finished book which the other infant children
could read.
Nursery Rhymes as a Stimulus
The book which became the stimulus for many of their ideas was called Times and
Rhymes (Davidson, 1997). Written in rhyming verse, it is really good to read to young
literacy learners because of the way it guides them into using all of the cueing
systems: syntactic, semantic and graphophonic. It specifically encourages the use of
picture cues, predicting, guessing, reading on, reading back, initial and final letter
sounds, patterns of letters in words and the use of onset, rime and analogy in rhyming
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words. It is also wonderful in the way it alludes to the nursery rhymes to come, giving
clues of all kinds before eventually, as one turns each page, exposing the full version
of the nursery rhyme to the reader. Ten familiar and not so familiar nursery rhymes are
referred to throughout the story.
This book was shared with the class of 6 and 7 year old children along with some
other books about nursery rhymes and traditional stories such as The Nursery Rhyme
Picnic (Wignell, 1990), Goodnight, Goodnight (Parkes, 1989), The Enormous
Watermelon (Parkes & Smith, 1986), Each Peach Pear Plum. (Ahlberg 1996), Mr.
Wolf’s Pancakes (Fearnley, 1999) and Little Bo Peep’s Library Book (Cowell, 1999).
The children started to consider what kind of personalities the rhyme characters had
when they were not “in role” in their story. The idea of writing about the further
adventures of some of these characters came later, after listening to the story of
Struwwelpeter, (Hoffman, 1845) the boy who had his fingernails cut off. The children
questioned how Struwwelpeter could carry on in life without fingernails. This led
them to relate back to the nursery rhyme characters and to consider what would
happen to some of them after their adventures. Some of which were quite traumatic,
such as Humpty Dumpty, who was shattered, and Rock a bye Baby who fell from a
tree in a cradle when one of the branches broke. We re-read the original book and
started to discuss each of the main characters in even more detail. As well as Humpty
Dumpty and Rock-a-bye baby, what further adventures would Jack and Jill get up to?
What about Jack, who was nimble and quick and who jumped over the
candlestick...what would he do? Contrary Mary: what other things could she do as
well as having silver bells, cockle- shells and pretty maids all in a row in her garden ?
Polly with her kettle, the old woman who lived in a shoe and the baby who fell from
the tree top complete with cradle, were all subjects for discussion.
John, a very insightful child, commented, “With no fingernails, Struwwelpeter
wouldn’t be able to hold his knife and fork, or draw and colour in ...... he wouldn’t be
able to pick his nose either would he!?”
Sean, who went on to write about Humpty Dumpty, said, “Perhaps every broken bit
of Humpty’s shell will grow other body bits and become complete eggs like worms
when they get chopped in half.”
Chris, who didn’t always find it easy to contribute to class discussions, said in relation
to Hickory Dickory Dock, “That mouse will be well shattered running up and down
the clock everytime it rings.”
The children talked eagerly and thoughtfully about their ideas and each child chose
the rhyme and character they wanted to work with. Having worked with them before I
knew they were certainly not afraid of putting their ideas down on paper and they were
used to doing shared writing followed by guided writing. However at this point I was
mindful of the recent Office for Standards in Education (Ofsted) interim report on the
National Literacy Strategy (1999) which states that greater emphasis needs to be given
to the teaching of writing. With both girls and boys, writing expertise seems to be
lagging behind reading. The whole process of writing needs teaching more explicitly
right across the 5 to 11 age range. I started to question myself. Was I doing enough to
help these children organise their narrative writing?
Research- Past and Present
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What impact has research on writing from the last two decades had on classroom
practice? I think back to the eighties when a great deal of international research,
(Calkins, 1986; Calkins & Harwayne, 1991; Clay, 1991; Graves, 1983, 1989 ; Hall,
1987, 1989; Parry & Hornsby, 1985; Temple et al, 1993), was conducted in relation to
children, learning and writing. In England action based research resulted in
newsletters which reported on the work of teachers during the period of The National
Writing Project (1985-1989). This project was set up to look at how writing was being
taught, to identify good practice in the teaching of young writers and to create
competent and confident writers who could write for a range of purposes. Many
teachers found that their personal and professional knowledge about how children
learn to write was augmented and broadened through the child centred research which
they conducted in their own classrooms. The research undertaken was wide ranging in
its content and fascinating in its findings; some teachers in the south of England
encountered disturbing and yet salutary viewpoints when they asked children a series
of questions about writing, including what makes a piece of writing good? The
majority of children said a good piece of writing must be long, have all words spelt
correctly, have correct punctuation to include capital letters and full stops and it must
be neat! The children were not considering the content, audience, purpose or
appropriateness of style when writing, indicating that much work needed to be done in
relation to changing children’s attitudes to writing.
It is evident that to develop as effective writers children need:
* the opportunity to try things out and to relate their previous knowledge
of print to their own personal situation
* to feel able to take risks without being frightened of making mistakes
* to be exposed to an adult role model who will share writing and the
whole writing experience with them
* to have something to write about and reasons to write
And incontrovertibly, children must have:
* exposure to top quality literature and books as children write what they read.
Much of the very relevant and creative international research of the eighties has
informed our current practice and is still influencing new research into the teaching of
writing. One such piece of teacher research, small scale in its range but still so
refreshingly relevant that it could almost have been written yesterday was by Chris
Rayers (1987). The article about shared, guided and independent writing, outlines a
methodology for modelling the process of writing with 5 to 11 year old children. It is
evident however that Rayer’s main aim was for teachers to teach children how to write
through acting as role models and encouraging the children to “have a go” in a
relaxed, child friendly atmosphere where they were expected to succeed when they
were scaffolded by the teacher. Rayers alluded to some of the problem areas that
children faced when trying to become writers, from tired hands for the very youngest
children, through to a lack of knowledge of the conventions of print and the inability
to spell new words with older children. He stated that instead of learning writing in a
piecemeal, bit by bit manner where the skills are focused on to the exclusion of the
meaning of the whole text, the young child:
“needs to experience the whole writing process as soon as possible, and shared
writing with an adult is an ideal method of providing such early writing success. The
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shared writing technique immediately involves the children in talking about writing
and in redrafting at a very early age”. p118
With Rayer’s ideas in mind it is interesting to read what the training details from the
National Literacy Strategy (Department for Education and Employment, 1998) have to
say about shared writing:
“In Shared Writing sessions, you will be using known texts to create new ones,
demonstrating different aspects of the writing process and helping pupils to
understand purpose, organisation and conventions of different genres. In their group
activities, pupils will be encouraged to write collaboratively and be taught how to
respond helpfully to others’ work. They will be asked to write parts of whole texts - an
opening, or a paragraph of dialogue, or an outline plan - which is not necessarily
developed into a full blown novel. These activities develop out of reading and should
involve pupils in returning to the text rather than departing further and further away
from it. They will use the original as a model, but change one or more ingredients -
perhaps the setting, or author’s viewpoint, characters, or outcome. Further revision
of pupils’ own writing will be going on in guided group work at Text, Sentence or
Word level. At these times they will be concerned with further crafting and refining,
rather than correcting spelling mistakes.” (DfEE, 1998)
It is evident that the issues have not changed despite the passage of time. Children and
their educators need to know that writing is not simply a process of thinking about an
idea, jotting it down and then tidying it up. As the Ministry of Education for New
Zealand consider in their book, Dancing with the Pen (1996), writing is recursive in
that the writer can move from one stage to another depending on what has already
been written and what is yet to be written. The audience and purpose will affect
whether drafting and proof reading are needed, whilst the desired outcome will
determine how the piece of writing is eventually presented, if at all.
The Process of Writing
The small group of children with whom I was working, although eager, enthusiastic
writers, were not always aware of all the stages in relation to the process of writing so
as they worked their way towards their completed book I carefully guided them
through each stage.
Diagram of “The Process of Writing” to go here.
1. Initially we related to our personal experiences of reading and responding to the big
book, Times and Rhymes.
All writers must have reasons to write and something to write about; an experience,
preferably first hand but more usually a second hand experience relating to a book
which has been shared with the children. Nigel Hall (1989) wrote extensively about
the need for children to write in purposeful ways, whilst Casbergue (1998) talks about
young children writing about authentic purposes in real situations.
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2. We talked about our responses to the book and started to jot down our ideas in a
random fashion for a shared write relating to one of the characters, this was the
brainstorming part of our writing.
At this stage we asked ourselves:
* Who is this writing for? (AUDIENCE)
* Why am I doing this writing? (PURPOSE)
* What is this writing about? (CONTENT)
* Is it necessary to do a brainstorm?
If so :
* What STYLE of writing will be APPROPRIATE in relation to the above questions?
3. We wrote our initial rough draft. At this point we were not in the least bit worried
about correctness in terms of grammar, punctuation, neatness, spelling and layout, we
were interested in placing some of the ideas from our brainstorming in a simple
written form.
At this stage we asked ourselves:
* Is a rough draft always needed?
* Do I need to do a rough draft to write a quick message to my best friend or to
write a shopping list?
* Do I need to do a rough draft to write an important letter or to write a story
to be read by the other children in school?
4. We then stopped to read what we had written and to talk about it , that is,
conference. Initially this was done with the teacher, then in small groups, then in
“response partner” pairs before “going it alone”.
At this stage we asked ourselves:
* Where does this adventure take place?
* Who are the characters in this story?
* What does that character look like, can you describe him/her?
* What else do I need to know about what is happening?
* How can I make this piece of writing better? Should I use more descriptive
language or take some bits out as they are repetitive?
The concept of conferencing as initiated by Donald Graves (1983) really allows
children to think about and reflect on their work in non threatening, helpful situations.
Hodgson (1995) feels that conferencing is a time when child and teacher get together
to discuss the child’s writing, whilst Mandel Morrow & Gambrel (1998) report on
some 5 and 6 year old children who write, then conference with partners:
“After writing, the partners read their stories to each other. Then they suggested
ideas for change or additions to their partner’s work. The partners made the
suggested revisions and then read their stories to each other again.” p156
5. We reviewed and revised our initial rough draft to include some of the ideas which
had come from our conferencing - amendments were made where appropriate.
At this stage we asked ourselves:
* Does my writing make sense?
* Does it need amending?
* How can I improve my writing?
* What else do I want to know?
* Do I need to add bits or take bits away?
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* Should the writing be more descriptive?
6. We conferenced once again to reassure ourselves that the writing was appropriate
for the audience and any further additions and omissions were made to the content of
the writing.
At this stage we asked ourselves:
* Have I carefully considered how my audience will relate to this?
* Is the style appropriate for the purpose?
7. We started to edit the writing at this stage and began to give full attention to
spelling, punctuation, grammar i.e. the secretarial aspects of the writing.
At this stage we asked ourselves:
* Are the words spelled correctly?
* Does the punctuation help with reading the text?
* Are the capital letters and full stops in the right place?
* Are the adjectives, adverbs and pronouns being used properly?
8. Finally we decided on the layout as this writing was being written as a book for
readers of all ages.
At this stage we asked ourselves:
* Is the layout appropriate for the content of this piece of writing?
* Are the illustrations in the right place? Are there enough illustrations?
* Is there a title page, a contents page, an index, page numbers, acknowledgments,
ISBN, Bar Code etc.?
* Is the cover suitably designed? Have the authors and illustrators got their names in
place?
* Is the work neat?
9. How shall we publish our book?
At this stage we asked ourselves:
* Should the text be typed or handwritten?
* Should it be bound between hard covers, spiral bound or placed in a ring file?
Each stage of the writing process was carefully considered, however it was the notion
of rough drafts that created most discussion with the most asked question being, “Are
rough drafts always necessary?”. It was through being involved in a piece of writing
which was going to be fully published for a particular audience (in this case the other
children in the class) that each child came to see that reviewing rough drafts was not
simply a case of copying the writing out neatly with correct spellings. The
conferencing aspect of the writing became important to this group of 6 and 7 year
olds; each child thought about his or her own idea but collaborated with the teacher
and then with a response partner when it came to conferencing. It was very evident
that by offering ideas, making suggestions for improvement and responding to each
other’s work the children’s writing was much improved as was their concept of
themselves as writers. The knowledge that writing is recursive is an important
concept for children and the notion of a piece of work being important enough to think
about, talk about and return to ... just as real authors do ... was a real support to them.
They realised that all stages in a writing process are important, from the initial stages
where they are composing and getting their ideas down without worrying about what
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they look like, through to the later stages where finer adjustments to make the writing
better are made as part of the reviewing and editing process.
The Children’s Alternative Adventures
Out of the ten contributors to the book which they called Mixed Up Nursery Rhymes
four children in particular showed a real understanding of the purpose of doing the
writing and a growing ability to write humorously for an intended audience. Their
further adventures of the nursery rhyme characters kept the essence of the nursery
rhyme genre, the lightheartedness of which often has a hidden message. However one
or two of their adventures had a rather forlorn, darker side to them.
“Jack be nimble” and “Jack and the Burning house” (Figure 1)
It is very evident from this short narrative that John had fully understood the potential
danger in Jack’s athletic actions and he was more than able to weave this into an
interesting, humorous adventure. Jack and the Burning House. Jack jumped back
over the candlestick but oh no! He fell onto the candlestick, ow, he burned his botty he
landed on the table cloth, he had started a fire, it spread, it burnt the whole house
down .One day he was walking round the debris and he met some mice. The next day
Jack and the mice went to London.
“Polly Put the Kettle On” and “Polly Burnt her Thumb” (Figure 2)
Caroline used the simple action of Polly putting the kettle on as a stimulus for a
further adventure. In similar ways to John, she could evidently see the danger of
getting burnt in the original rhyme and she used this theme in her narrative about
Polly and Sukey.
Polly Burnt her Thumb. When Polly put the kettle on she had put too much hot water
in the kettle so she burnt her thumb. She touched the oven, suddenly the oven exploded
and made a great big fire. Instead of Sukey taking the kettle off she was in the garden
having a sunbathe suddenly Sukey saw the flames. So Sukey got a basket and started
filling it with water, soon the fire was out. Sukey and Polly moved to another cottage
and they all lived happily ever after.
“Humpty Dumpty” and “Sellotaped Dumpty” (Figure 3)
It was the idea of poor Humpty Dumpty shattering into a myriad of pieces that
inspired Sean to write his very comical piece. Sellotaped Dumpty Humpty Dumpty
sat on a wall then he cracked. The King’s men couldn’t put him together so they
sellotaped him to together then he watched Man.(Manchester)United, every time they
scored. Once when they scored he crashed and all the yolk came out then he died.
Photocopy of both versions of “Rock a bye baby” (Figure 4)
In Laura’s work we see another child who is able to relate the nursery rhyme incident
to real life. She included dialogue and a real sense of the here and now coupled with
the whimsical nature of the nursery rhyme setting. Laura read her story out with such
conviction, expression and enthusiasm that it was impossible to have anything other
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than full respect for her work. She was already showing signs of being a competent
writer at the age of six. Rock a bye baby Waa! Waa! Mama! Mama! the branch
broke and I fell down onto the ground. Waa! Waa! be quiet because you won’t have
any dinner! OK. The baby was silent for a minute then said, “But I won’t have my
favourite baby food will I?”
“No you won’t will you?” said Mummy.
( You now realise this story has a lot of shouting going on).
Grandma came, “Shush! Listen to this rock a bye baby on the tree top, when the wind
blows the cradle will fall.”
That’s all I know up to now, sorry. Come on let’s go to Bolton”.
When they got there they had lots of fun.
The children in the group immensely enjoyed their work, they were enthusiastic and
motivated -- noted by their requests to work through playtimes during the mornings I
was able to spend with them! Their writing benefited as could be seen by their
increasing ability to plan, to jot their initial ideas down, to write their first draft, to
structure interesting short story lines in terms of plot and events and in their more
sophisticated use of words. However despite my encouragement to write more
stimulating endings they wrote rather mundane, uninspired and stereotyped endings. It
was evident that we needed to read and study the endings in many more stories, both
traditional and contemporary before considering the kinds of endings which would be
suitable for our simple short stories. The children would also need exposure to more
teacher modelling focusing on resolutions in narratives. Many teachers find this a
problem area as Maureen Lewis (1999) noted in relation to her work on narrative
writing.
What have we learnt?
Despite the fact that this collaborative piece of work done with six and seven year old
children was small scale in terms of time, numbers and range of intentions, it was very
positive in terms of its outcomes. It was very encouraging to find that nursery rhymes
and traditional stories make excellent stimuli for narrative writing because of their
predictability and their ability to make children feel at ease with their apparent
simplicity. I was convinced that slightly older infant children would benefit from a
more detailed examination of the nursery rhyme genre and was pleased to confirm that
this was indeed the case; the nursery rhymes were humorous, witty and thought
provoking.
The children’s developing ability to organise and plan their written work confirmed
my thoughts that they need a role model at each stage of their journey towards full
competency as authors. Hornsby (2000) discusses five stages which he feels are
crucial components in the writing part of a comprehensive literacy programme: these
include modelled writing, shared and interactive writing, guided writing, independent
writing and language-experience which can fuel the other aspects of the programme.
These stages move from maximum support from the adult to a variety of different
levels of support depending on the children’s needs. Hornsby’s extra stages augment
the now recognised shared, guided and independent stages whilst also highlighting the
fact that the teacher’s role is crucial in the teaching of writing.
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It was noteworthy that the children were now beginning to see their writing as a
process, something which couldn’t be done in one session but needed a longer period
of time. Their growing awareness of how each stage of the process fitted into the
whole was evident from their responses to the work as it developed and came together
as the finished book. With help from me these children had also begun to see writing
as recursive. They were more prepared to work on parts of it, re-reading, re-visiting,
adding bits, taking bits away, chatting about it and generally improving its fluency.
Time, exposure to a knowledgeable role model and many more opportunities to
practise, consolidate and continually apply their existing knowledge to new and
different writing situations will now be needed to allow these children to grow as
writers.
The whole writing process can be very difficult. It is time consuming, labour intensive
and often frustrating. Even professional writers find it difficult and really have to work
at it. If schools make the process of writing part of a whole school policy, starting with
4 and 5 year olds and leading up to 10 and 11 year olds in a cyclical, recursive fashion
then they are more likely to produce effective writers who find writing a rewarding
experience.
References
Ahlberg, J & A. (1996) Each Peach Pear Plum. London: Oliver & Boyd.
Calkins, L. (1986) The Art of Teaching Writing New Hampshire: Heinemann
Calkins, L. & Harwayne, S. (1991) Living Between the Lines New Hampshire:
Heinemann
Casbergue, R.(1998) How do we foster young children’s writing development? in
Neuman, S. & Roskos, K. (1998) (eds.) Children Achieving: Best Practices in Early
Literacy Delaware: International Reading Association
Cowell, C. (1999) Little Bo Peep’s Library Book London: Hodder Headline
Clay, M. (1991) Becoming Literate: The Construction of Inner Control New
Hampshire: Heinemann
Davidson, A. (1997) Times and Rhymes London: Kingscourt
DfEE (1998) The National Literacy Strategy Framework for Teaching London: DfEE
Fearnley, J. (1999) Mr. Wolf’s Pancakes London: Methuen Children’s Books
Graves, D. (1983) Writing: Teachers and Children at Work New Hampshire:
Heinemann
Graves, D. (1989) Experiment With Fiction New Hampshire: Heinemann
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Hall, N. (1987) The Emergence of Literacy London: Hodder & Stoughton
Hall, N. (1989) Writing with Reason: The Emergence of Authorship in Young
Children Sevenoaks: Hodder & Stoughton
Hodgson, M. (1995) Show Them How To Write: The Writing Process For Children
From Seven Years On New Zealand: Lands End Publishing Ltd.
Hornsby, D. (2000) A Closer Look at Guided Reading Melbourne: Eleanor Curtain
Publishing
Hoffman, H. (1845) Strewwelpeter Belitha Press
Lewis, M. (1999) Developing Children’s Narrative Writing using Story Narratives in
Goodwin, P. (1999) (ed.) The Literate Classroom London: David Fulton Publishers
Mandel Morrow, L. & Gambrell, L. (1998) How do we Motivate Children Toward
Independent Reading and Writing? in Neuman, S. & Roskos, K. (1998) (eds.)
Children Achieving: Best Practices in Early Literacy Delaware: International Reading
Association
Ministry of Education (1996) Dancing with the Pen: The Learner as a Writer New
Zealand: Learning Media Limited
Ofsted (1999) The National Literacy Strategy: An Interim Evaluation London: Ofsted
Opie, I. & Opie, P. (1987) The Lore and Language of Schoolchildren Oxford: Oxford
University Press.
Parkes, B. (1989) Goodnight, Goodnight London: Kingscourt
Parkes, B. & Smith, J. (1986) The Enormous Watermelon London: Kingscourt
Parry, J. & Hornsby, D. (1985) Write On: A Conference Approach to Writing New
Hampshire: Heinemann
Rayers, C. (1987) Writing Should be Sharing Reading (1987) (21) (2)
Temple, C., Nathan, R., Temple, F., & Burris, N. (1993) The Beginnings of Writing
Massachusetts: Allyn & Bacon
The National Writing Project (1989) Walton-on-Thames: Thomas Nelson & Sons
Trussell-Cullen, A. (1989) A Pocket Full of Posies: A History of Nursery Rhymes
London: Kingscourt
Wignell, E. (1990) The Nursery Rhyme Picnic London: Kingscourt
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Janet Evans
Senior Lecturer in Education
Liverpool Hope University College