Living Life Twice

I recall a quote in newspaper a few years back regarding the teaching of writing. Professor Peter Knapp was quoted thus; ‘Kids come out of primary school without mastering the technical aspects of writing and yet secondary schools aren't equipped to teach writing or, in many cases, prepared to teach it.’ Let's unpack that statement a little... There appears to be a persisting belief that Primary Schools are expected to teach students to read and write, and Secondary Schools can then focus on reading and writing to learn. This falsehood has persisted since my teacher training days –many decades ago! It demonstrably fails to recognize the developmental nature of learning, and it certainly shows a disregard for students as learners. We learn at different rates. We don’t all learn to tie our shoelaces on a predetermined day. Why would we assume that all learners reach the same developmental point at the conclusion of Grade 6- and why would we discontinue teaching them ...

UPDATED July 2021 Education consultant Dr Peter Knapp  was quoted in an article by Janine Ferrari in The Australian, November 29th, 2014 as saying, ‘Kids come out of primary school without mastering the technical aspects of writing and yet secondary schools aren't equipped to teach writing or, in many cases, prepared to teach it.’ Let's examine that statement a little... There appears to be a persistent belief that Primary Schools are expected to teach students to read and write, and Secondary School can then focus on reading and writing to learn. This falsehood has been around since my teacher training days –more than four decades ago! It denies the developmental nature of learning. It fails to recognize the influence of immigration on the school system, and it certainly shows a disregard for students as learners. We learn at different rates. We don’t all learn to tie our shoe laces on a predetermined day. Why would we assume that all learners r...

As   a writer, I am constantly looking for ideas and inspiration. So naturally, I was excited when I came across this poetry pearl of an idea when checking Twitter last evening. It comes from Austin Kleon, http://www.austinkleon.com/newspaperblackout/    an Austin , Texas based artist and writer. Austin calls this method for composing poetry ‘Blackout Poetry.’ He uses newspaper pages to redact the original text with permanent markers to eliminate words not required, thus leaving only those words essential for creating the desired message.   Austin encourages fellow poets to dive right in and try blacking out and then sharing the resultant poems on his web site. This strategy works in a similar fashion to ‘found poems’ and ‘river poems’ in so much as it brings old pages back to life by using the words in an enterprising and creative way.   I  can imagine Blackout poems working really well with  the student writers I meet...

Came across this post from Franki Sibberson at 'Choice Literacy' and thought it was well worth sharing. The post deals with middle school adolescent writers and  how Franki grappples with her goals for writer's workshop for this particular age group. I offer it as a worthwhile read. The article is titled 'Short Genres, Big Messages.'   Franki Sibberson writes:   'Some years ago, I moved from a 5th grade classroom to an intermediate multiage classroom with grades 3 and 4 students. I realized quickly that my writing workshop would be different from what it was in 5th grade. Although these students were ready to keep a writers' notebook, there were things from the primary writing workshop that I felt these kids would also benefit from. There seems to be quite a bit written on writing workshop for grades K-1 and for the upper elementary grades. When I taught beginning readers and writers, we were immersed in making books and in deciding which f...