Living Life Twice

  Writing has a dimension that extends well beyond the page and the pen.      While the words spill across the page, the ideas driving them frequently arise well away from where the writing eventually takes place.      As author, Jane Yolen notes in her book, Take Joy, ‘Writing is not always done on the page.’      Experienced writers devote a significant amount of time to the preparation for writing. They may at various times, read, research, discuss, draw, plan, think, brainstorm, either individually, or in concert.       From these pre-writing activities they may simultaneously launch into rehearsal of words and ideas in locations well away from their favoured writing location.      Rehearsal is an impressively portable concept. It can be conducted anywhere, anytime- in the car, in the shower, in a café, at the beach, the airport, or just before you drift off to sleep. It can be activated whi...

The writer sits down to face the blank page, only to be greeted by the dazzling whiteness of the paper. The pen is tightly gripped as the writer stares at the empty page. There is hope that time will deliver the wondrous words desperately sought. The empty lines beckon inviting the young writer’s words. The challenge remains- How to begin? If you have experienced this feeling, you will have greater empathy for your students and those feelings that sometimes overwhelm them as beginning writers. They often have a broad idea regarding their writing, but have little idea where, or how, to begin. They want to produce something that effectively conveys a message but remain unsure of how to begin the process. 'I know what I want to write about, but I don't know how to start.' We need to recognize that it is at this point we can provide meaningful support to allay such writing anxieties. Teaching students how to think of something to write, provides a way forward. This p...

  Some of my earliest memories of writing are entwined around the weekly writing topics I was given in primary school. We wrote every Thursday afternoon, immediately after the lunch break. It wasn't even called writing. Our teacher referred to it as 'composition time.' We wrote for about twenty minutes in absolute silence in our 'composition' books.  At the end of the allotted time, we handed in our written responses, then waited an entire week to receive feedback for our labored efforts. It consisted of a mark out of ten and a page of red ink comments and slashes across the page. Then we sat and waited for the next teacher topic to be thrown our way. We wrote one day a week for twenty minutes. It wasn't much of a writing program by today's standards. It wasn't much of a way to learn writing back then either. I'm surprised we learned to write at all on such a starvation diet. I was just lucky enough to be the kind of kid who was driven to write in pl...