Living Life Twice

At the conclusion of each school year, I feel compelled to write, urging teachers to quarantine a little of their well deserved holidays break time for some writing.  As we rapidly approach the end of another challenging year, my message remains unerringly simple.  If you are a teacher who writes, it is easier  to present as a writer who teaches.  Will you be embracing the challenge of keeping your own writer’s notebooks in 2024? Well, that notebook will greatly benefit from some early feeding and summer always presents as a potential feast… I am aware of the level of exhaustion that exists in schools at year’s end.  The need to tie up a multitude of loose ends prior to school closing for the summer holidays remains.   The final days of school seem to take the longest time of all the many school weeks. School becomes the epicentre of fatigue for both students and staff. I am also aware that on summer’s horizon teachers will have free time to relax and regen...

 A continuing narrative of my work in schools has been to promote the idea of writers as storytellers. I have always been a person who has enjoyed sharing stories and jokes, whether from first hand experience, or relating stories gifted across a lifetime. I encourage developing writers to tell their stories too. It presents as perfect rehearsal tool for any writer. Telling  stories before you write not only eliminates the notion of 'cold starts'- it frequently results in a much enhanced end product. Often a writer's story may be told many times before it emerges as written words. I often tell my stories many times before I commit them to the pages of my notebook.  It is in the telling that the story and the words are refined. In the end the reader benefits from these repeated tellings. Each of us has stories unique to our experience. It is folly not to see value in sharing them. It is here that we begin the process of living life twice. I once had a student comm...

  Childhood provides a rich source of writing inspiration into which every writer may easily delve. For those teachers unaccustomed to writing, for and with their students, it is a great place to begin exploring a treasury of written words. As a starting point for writing I encourage inexperienced adult writers to recall aspects of their childhood as a great starting point to begin writing. Writing, that can later be shared.  The range of childhood experiences is enormous –ranging from disappointment to elation! The full gamut of human emotions condensed into those special, vividly etched years.  While the world may have changed significantly since your own particular childhood, certain universal elements remain unchanged -matters such as, doubt, fear, discovery, curiosity, and the twin imposters of triumph and defeat, to name but a few. This is where a universal connection can be made. Childhood is a time in our lives when experiences feel quite intensified. We often ret...

  THE impact of TEACHERs WHO Write I remain very aware of the influence a teacher’s own writing has on impressionable students. Some teachers believe they have little actual power when it comes to the attitudes of young learners. The reality is, teachers control the very climate in the classroom. I frequently find myself invoking this quote from educator, Haim Ginott. ‘I’ve come to a frightening conclusion that I am the decisive element in the classroom. It’s my personal approach that creates the climate. It’s my daily mood that makes the weather. As a teacher, I possess a tremendous power to make a child’s life miserable or joyous. I can be a tool of torture or an instrument of inspiration. I can humiliate or heal. In all situations, it is my response that decides whether a crisis will be escalated or de-escalated and a child humanized or dehumanized.’ So, when a teacher presents to students as a fellow writer, the children’s world view of writing is challenged. Something qu...

  ‘Giving young writers genuine choice is the best way I know to create an environment where they can flourish.’  Ralph Fletcher  Some suggestions for teachers of writing to consider in regard to using writer's notebooks in the classroom writing program. • Choice of notebook is the first opportunity to practice choice. Allow each writer to choose a notebook that meets their needs. • Allow notebooks to move between school and home to create a bridge between the two locations. Encourage writing in multiple locations, at different times. • Not everything written in a notebook has to be published or fully drafted. Not everything is significant.  • Respect the integrity of the notebook by not writing in them. Don’t try to control the notebook, otherwise it may well become just another ‘workbook’ in the eyes of the young writer. Its integrity will fade away. It is not assessed or scrutinized. It is nourished and supported as a writer’s resource. • At all times th...

  At the conclusion of each school year, I feel compelled to write, urging teachers to quarantine a little of their well deserved holidays break time for some writing.  As we rapidly approach the end of another challenging year, my message remains unerringly simple.  If you are a teacher who writes, it is easier  to present as a writer who teaches.  Will you be embracing the challenge of keeping your own writer’s notebooks in 2022? Well, that notebook will greatly benefit from some early feeding and the summer presents as a potential feast… I am aware of the level of exhaustion that exists in schools at year’s end. It is probably more so following the unerring demands of these Covid years.  The need to tie up a multitude of loose ends prior to school closing for the summer holidays remains.   The final days of school seem to take the longest time of all the many school weeks. School becomes the epicentre of fatigue for both students and staff. I am als...

  Writer Joan Didion famously said our (writer’s) notebooks give us away. We are revealed by the contents. Our notebooks are a place to collect, then take those collected items and use them to spark further original writing. As Ralph Fletcher, writer and educator reminds us, we use our notebooks to breathe in (collect) and breathe out (generate). With these thoughts ringing in my ears, I envisage notebooks brimming with words and ideas across a range of subjects and genres. The notebook is a place to experiment, take risks, make important discoveries, or excavate memories and ideas from deep within. It can be a place to have fun with words. So why is it that in some classrooms when students take out their notebooks the pages reveal a picture far removed from the images I just outlined?     Why does one get the impression that the notebook in these school settings is only realizing a small part of its potential? Why is the critical ingredient –‘writing,’ so lacking as...

  Shining A Light On Writing Processes I have long tried to practice and advocate for the highlighting of process when teachers share examples of their own writing. To be a teacher who writes is a critical first step in helping young writers see that you value something you are asking them to wholeheartedly embrace. However, a further   mindful step is required in order to maximize the writing the teacher brings to the classroom. There is more that can be done than simply reading our writer’s notebook entries… When it comes to sharing a piece of writing with young writers, the story surrounding it, the process undertaken, becomes a vital part of the share time. As teachers, we must be prepared to invest time shining a strong light on the processes that brought the words to the page. There is real value to be gained explaining the procedures followed, the craft moves employed, the discoveries the process revealed, as well as the lessons learnt along the way. Unpacking t...