Living Life Twice

As a child I demonstrated a visible passion for sport. Football, cricket, athletics were my three passions. Little else mattered. I devoted innumerable hours to perfecting my skills in these sporting zones. It was always football in winter; cricket and athletics in summer. The backyard of our house was the setting for my initial efforts. -Sometimes in a shared sense and sometimes on my own. I kicked the football, leapt in the air and marked it, chased it, bounced it –round and round and round the yard. The football and I were almost constantly connected. The onset of darkness at the end of the day was the trigger for calling an end to my pursuit of my sporting dreams. They burned brightly.  Things reached a point when my mother intervened and suggested I move my practice to a more appropriate setting because her flowers were constantly under attack from stray footballs. I was decimating her dahlias.  Cricket was much the same. Bat and ball were equally attended to as I lived out

  Emotional response is critically important in writing.    It’s part of the total package. Our emotional responses manifest themselves in many ways. Sometimes it's the writer. Sometimes it's the writing. Sometimes it's the ways it is taught. Today, I find myself thinking about my responses to a number of common classroom writing scenarios. My heart sings when kids enter classrooms announcing 'I know what I'm going to write about today.' It’s clear evidence of rehearsal in the writers mind. I find myself disappointed when a teacher doesn't instinctively allow a young writer to hold the pen during an editing conference. Ownership of this task is critical to the developing writer.   I rejoice when a teacher is brave enough to share their personal writing with their students.   I am warmed when a young writer demonstrates a willingness to persist with a writing problem. The inner drive to solve the problem becomes an irresistible force.   I sens