Representing Realities: Children as Speakers, Readers and Writers of Englishes

ABSTRACT This essay investigates the classroom talk and reflections of a Year 5 lesson on reading and writing beyond Standard English. Its title refers to ‘Reflecting Realities’, the CLPE survey of ethnic diversity in UK children’s books. In changing ‘reflecting’ to ‘representing’ I seek to move beyond concern with sourcing representative texts to the work of writing them, stimulating this through bringing non-standard English into the classroom in metalinguistic analysis of diverse Englishes, and in the transcription of parent/carer voice in storytelling. I explore how creative writing can be extended and informed by this process. In the lesson the classroom talk generated shared learning about language and identity. In becoming ‘reader-researchers’ the class also learnt technical elements in writing voice, extended school-home engagement, broadened choices as readers and writers, and moved towards parity between the Englishes they know and encounter – and thus between the people who use them.