Living Life Twice

  In the classroom while working with fellow educators the goal of helping young writers to develop a genuine sense of their own identity as writers has shone like a bright flame. Children’s writing identities will either thrive or fail to bloom according to what happens with the writing experiences encountered in the classroom.  A teacher brings with them enormous capacity to influence both the personal and world view a child develops regarding writing. With this in mind, the nurturing of writing identity must remain at the forefront of a teachers words and actions every time they enter the classroom. Teachers' identities as writers (or non-writers) tend to be highly influential factors in the development of students’ writing identities. The power to influence should never be underestimated. It is therefore important for a teacher to be able to draw from an identity perspective to illustrate how people create new activities, new worlds, and new ways of being through writ...

  Writer identity is constructed with a growing consciousness of how writing actually works and how each writer fits into that space.  For this to happen the most proficient reader and writer in the classroom must demonstrate the decisions and actions that characterize a truly independent, self-directed learner.    If young writers are to feature as risk-takers in the classroom, the teaching they are exposed to needs to be bold and brave. Students will be more inclined to write their way beyond the limits of the comfort zone, if a teacher holds a torch that lights the way. What Donald Graves referred to as an ‘ego force’ is the vital spark driving our young writers to want more from the experience. This energy pushes them forward in pursuit of a stronger writer identity. I fondly recall two Grade 3 writers I   once taught who regularly got their heads together to write poetry on the classroom floor. They became known as the 'Floor Poets' and across that year, an...

    My Personal Journey To Claiming Writer Identity The development of my identity as a writer did not occur as some kind of overnight revelation. It was more like a gradual metamorphosis, resulting from a life-long immersion in writing and responding to the call of words. Words are something I love very much. A major influence in this area was my father who was not a writer, but, someone who certainly loved words and honed the art of playing with them. He was riddler, puzzler with a pronounced ability for wordplay He fostered my close attention to the power words possessed. I willingly took his gift and used it to drive my desire to write, which emerged quite early and never receded.   As a result, I have clung tenaciously to writing as if it were a safe harbour in a storm. Looking back, I was clearly a writer under construction. I just kept writing until the words got better. Many years later, calling myself a writer felt more comfortable. I still strongly recall writin...