Living Life Twice

Teaching writing frequently involves a balancing act between teaching the conventions of grammar and spelling and addressing aspects of craft and meaning. Unfortunately for young writers, many teachers devote disproportionate attention to perfecting the secretarial aspects of writing, much to the detriment of capturing ideas, attention to important details, a sense of audience, risk taking and voice - things that matter when writing.  When spelling correctly is an over-arching consideration, young writers avoid ambitious vocabulary choices. They write –safely. They write less, and they write tentatively for fear of getting it wrong. The writer, perceived as a 'good' speller, may in fact be a 'safe' speller, such is their fear of getting it wrong.  Grainger et al. (2005) claimed teachers frequently send children off to write with the songs of how to fulfil technical aspects of writing ringing in their ears and anything else is sadly swept aside. Any tune the text may p...

I vividly recall Georgia,  a young writer, making a gem of a comment during a writing workshop session some time back. A comment that made my heart sing. I had asked students for feedback concerning the writing they had just concluded, and  Georgia  offered the comment, ‘ The more I wrote, the more I remembered .’ Not wishing to conceal my joy, I rushed to the whiteboard and wrote these special words in large letters; identifying  Georgia  as the person being quoted.  Georgia ’s words were a powerful reminder that given the right conditions the developing writer’s ideas take flight! Our little writing community had been focusing on developing greater writing stamina, going deeper into our writing if you like. In consultation with the teacher we had identified a lack of stamina in student writing and discussed the need for them to generate a greater volume of text and to do this we had to improve their ‘writing muscles, in the same way we had deve...

A recent conversation with a group of teachers about correcting errors in writing set me to thinking about the ways we approach this often vexed issue. We know inexperienced writers make errors. We also know experienced writers make mistakes. Learning cannot take place without some level of error. One of the greatest issues a developing writer can face is to be inhibited from responding, for fear of being wrong. When a young writer tackles an unfamiliar word in their writing and spells it correctly they confirm their existing beliefs concerning that word. If they happen to get it ‘wrong’ then they learn something just as important. They learn that they must modify their belief about that word. The writer learns by testing their existing belief. This is the kind of healthy risk taking we must encourage in our classrooms. Writers should not be afraid to tackle new words. I recall with glowing pride as a Grade 1 writer tackled the word  aquarium  in her writin...