Cayman Islands Writing Exemplar

Brief Description of Text-types

The types of writing for primary schools include: recount (personal narrative/retell), narrative, procedural, report,  

explanatory, persuasive, and response. It is encouraged that once a school becomes familiar with the text-type  

approach to writing instruction, each year group will follow the scope of performance tasks that has been outlined in  

the Guidance on Effective Writing Instruction: KS1.  

Ultimately, students need to understand the different text types, text forms, and genres and how they work in order to 

make decisions about the kind of writing they are going to create. They should clearly identify their audience and their 

purpose for writing. A student chooses the text type as a result of the purpose and selects the form to communicate  

the message in the most effective way. At KS1 and KS2, it is also critically important that students understand the  

differences between fictional and non-fictional texts, and recognize that there are various ways of writing them. Text 

type studies have been introduced to support a deeper understanding of how purpose, text types, genres and text 

forms interact.

The term text form refers to the format (or container) in which the message is sent. For example, letters, emails,  

articles, storyboards, journals, signs, recipes, play scripts, stories, posters, brochures, comic strips, poems,  free  

verse, and essays are all examples of forms of writing. 

Introduction

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