Living Life Twice

 I am forever rereading writing pieces from my notebooks. I greatly appreciate how much rereading older entries assists me in discovering a new idea to feed this writing life addiction. Virginia Woolf defines rereading as a chance to find diamonds in the dust-heap. I find myself frequently covered in dust and constantly looking for precious gems. I am acutely aware that rereading is vitally important to me as a writer. Apart from the possibility of finding a new writing thread, I am also reliving the moment in time when I first captured a particular entry. On some occasions rereading connects me with previously over looked memories or ideas. So apart from reading to revise or proofread, I would also add rereading for the express purpose of excavating ideas. This rereading is akin to rummaging through a toy box as a child and discovering a lost treasure. It works best when I leave some time between the writing and the rereading. Often i deliberately chose an older noteb...

One of our primary aims as teachers of writing is to assist the inexperienced writer to narrow the gap between their intentions and actions.  Going forward there are some specific actions we need to focus on such as assisting students to develop writing stamina and experience success.  Here are some issues that may arise with student writers and some suggestions as to how we might assist them to overcome these obstacles to writing success. If I see this… I might Strategies A student is just going through the motions with a writing piece. Assist the student to unearth topics to write down that provide genuine reasons for writing that go beyond just writing. Listing, gathering ideas, gathering artifacts. Talking to other writers. Students essentially write about the same topic time after time. Talk with students about other reasons that writers write. Consider writing about the topic in a different genre. Nudge them to try something that will move the...

Before young writers can begin to develop a more distinctive  storyteller’s voice, we must assist them to understand that writing becomes more personal when the topic or focus of their writing is limited to a specific moment in time. The closer they can get to a small moment, the more the writing comes to life  for the reader. Then, if they can link more than one of these special moments along a timeline, a sense of storytelling emerges for the reader.  If your students are writing focused and clear narratives but you are not gaining a sense of the storyteller’s voice in the words, this is where the teaching focus needs to be.  The challenge is to raise the young writers sense of story. It is important for the developing writer to understand the role of the narrator . Are they aware of the narrator’s viewpoint in telling the story?  This is the story within the story. What mood is created by the words?  How is the plot ...

Today I found a poem. It was hiding in a rather unassuming volume. The book is titled, The Storm Book , and was written by Charlotte Zolotow and published in 1952. The cover does not have immediate appeal, but it would be a major mistake to dismiss this book on the basis of its underwhelming cover. For inside, it contains a  wonderfully rich, descriptive text.  The book tells the story of a storm from its approach, to its thunderous arrival and its demise and aftermath. I love this book and have used it many times to teach young writers how to write strong, visually strong description. It was given to me when I was living in New York . It has become a highly valued mentor text and sits proudly along side much flasher books on my library shelf. I periodically revisit this wonderful old book, and today I pulled it from the shelves, and began browsing. I became aware of buried treasure within the text. I sensed a poem was lying just below the surface. So I decided to d...

Ask your students to choose up to five random phrases from a book they are currently reading or from a series of favourite books, should these be available. The criteria for choosing a particular phrase would be its appeal as an example of good word use, or it may be that the words chosen assist them to make a connection to an experience in their own lives. This would assist them greatly when writing a personal narrative. Ask them to then choose one phrase that appeals above the others and use the chosen words somewhere in a writing piece. –at the beginning, within the body of the text, or at the end. Before asking your students to try this, I suggest you try it yourself. Here is my attempt: My chosen phrases from three sources: She leaned forward earnestly searching out my face ( In the Skin of a Lion, Michael Ondaatje) The gears crunched and the truck wheeled onto the main road ( Heart Songs, Annie Proulx) Dragonflies hovered above the pool. ( Ceremony, Leslie Marmon Silko ) EXAMPLE ...

Lifting A Line from a text –Example 1 Here is a writing idea I picked up from listening to David Morely’s Writing Challenges , ( Warick University UK ). Those of you with technological pretensions may choose to download these writing challenges as podcasts. I found this link in the Itunes store but there is also a link through David's webpage. For those of you who wish to contact David Morley’s web site, check out the Writing links to the right of this post, and it will take you directly to the place you are seeking, -It's as easy as that! David challenged me to randomly open a book and point to any part of the facing page without sneeking a peek before hand. Then he asked me to choose a line from somewhere in the text near to where my finger landed. I had to choose a phrase that caught my eye. I was then asked to lift that line and write it in my writer’s notebook. David directed me to repeat this process until I had gathered approximately a page of random phrases. In the end...