Living Life Twice

  There is much appeal in short stories. They provide tiny windows into other worlds. It is important to expose student writers to their charm. It serves to add an extra dimension to their writing options. Story 1 On Hold 'I’m standing in a crowded shopping mall waiting to order my lunch from a sandwich bar/deli; the kind where they build your sandwich from an assortment of fillings. My order is taken and I stand back waiting for the sandwich to be completed. A man standing beside me begins to order his lunch from the person serving behind the counter keenly awaiting his order. As he begins to relay his order, his phone rings. He dives into his pocket and extracts his phone of choice and holds up a hand to the woman before uttering ‘Hang on a minute.’ She immediately stops sandwich construction duties, and stands as if in suspended animation for what seems an eternity. Her serving tongs are held like a torch in the air while phone man attends to his phone message. The woman says ...

  Each and every time writing conversations are conducted with inexperienced writers the guiding question is commonly framed around –where do I begin? When a young writer is struggling to find a focus for their writing, teachers frequently seek to help the writer find a suitable topic by reminding them of their interest, or referring to their personal writing history. This approach generally works. Rather than taking this course of action let’s consider the writer in terms of the   future and what we as teachers can do to support and empower their decision making around writing. We could ask questions such as ‘What strategies do you think other writers use to find out what it is they might write about?’ If the young writers suggests they do not know the teacher could suggest some pre-writing strategies that could be employed to assist a writers to identify a writing focus Strategies such as: Reading/rereading Researching Listing   clustering  and brainstorm...