Living Life Twice

  Young writers can experience a great sense of agency surrounding their writing ideas and processes, but this does not guarantee they will derive a sense of pleasure from their writing. Young writers need support in the form of mindful instruction so they learn how to best  apply that growing sense of  agency. Agency needs the company of intention for the writer to prosper. Without that explicit instruction, writing will not thrive. Knowing they can write is important, but knowing how to proceed with that writing is just as important.  Agency needs the solid support of self-efficacy and self-regulation. When coupled with these components, agency becomes a vital motivating force, leading to increased engagment and performance. So, when teachers inquire into writing processes and demonstrate how to set process goals, the agentic writer has an all-important writing roadmap to follow. A roadmap highlighted by a more proficient writer.  The influence of a teacher/...

  As renowned, researcher, writer and educator, Donald Graves said many times,  ‘The enemy is orthodoxy!’ He rightly concluded that orthodoxies are trotted out as simplistic shortcuts to what we know are complex processes. Processes essential to the teaching of writing. Orthodoxies frequently develop from misconceptions and misunderstandings regarding the true nature of writing. They become substitutes for genuine thinking. They present as evidence that thinking has been short circuited. They   most certainly mitigate against deeper thinking;   clouding the issue with often meaningless actions, jargon and expectations.   They frequently rise in direct opposition to the reality of writing practices. In this way they become a distortion of what writers actually do. The rise of orthodoxies occurs when a teacher does not know the child writer, or the process of writing well enough to know what they are actually witnessing. They are frequently used by teachers ...

 A continuing narrative of my work in schools has been to promote the idea of writers as storytellers. I have always been a person who has enjoyed sharing stories and jokes, whether from first hand experience, or relating stories gifted across a lifetime. I encourage developing writers to tell their stories too. It presents as perfect rehearsal tool for any writer. Telling  stories before you write not only eliminates the notion of 'cold starts'- it frequently results in a much enhanced end product. Often a writer's story may be told many times before it emerges as written words. I often tell my stories many times before I commit them to the pages of my notebook.  It is in the telling that the story and the words are refined. In the end the reader benefits from these repeated tellings. Each of us has stories unique to our experience. It is folly not to see value in sharing them. It is here that we begin the process of living life twice. I once had a student comm...

Talk is an integral part of learning, and no less so within the writing workshop. The legendary writing researcher, writer and educator, Donald Graves, regularly encouraged young writers to think aloud and articulate their writing intentions. He wanted young writers to give voice to the intended direction of their, soon to emerge, writing. In some classrooms though, talk has unintended consequences. Because talk is not used strategically, it becomes an impediment to the flow of writing. For talk to play a supportive role in the writing process, it must be harnessed.  Talk has a great contribution to make during pre-writing. It can contribute to the sparking of potential writing idea. Equally, it can also assist the writer to clarify the direction they wish to take with their writing. It can used to reflect and review writing pieces already under construction.  It is said, the more we articulate our intentions, the more likely we are to actually pursue them. So, providing oppor...