Living Life Twice

With the wonderful support of Lisa Burman Consulting, I am pleased to announce that I will be presenting in Adelaide on June 16 alongside, American Educator and Author, Matt Glover. I look forward to being part of this professional learning day. It's a rare opportunity to listen to Matt, while I look forward to sharing insight into how writing can be most effectively presented with older students. Hope to see you in Adelaide. Matt Glover & Alan Wright in Adelaide 2017!   Matt Glover Matt Glover is making his first trip to Australia and we have him here in Adelaide! As many of you already know, Matt is one of the key influences in our Bookmaking Approach. In fact, every time I read one of Matt's books, I almost feel like I could have written it, we are so 'in tune' with each other's values and beliefs. The details, including conference titles and content, are still being worked out, but I wanted to share t...

R u mm agi n g 'Go to the attic of your mind and rummage around and find something.' Mary Higgins Clark What excellent advice for those who procrastinate over writing. Remember it is easy to find reasons not to write. What you are seeking is just one good reason to write. For teachers, the answer is -your students! Rummaging is such a wonderful word. I experience such delight when indulging in a bit of rummaging. It imbues the spirit of discovery, and the  potential to uncover unexpected treasure and delight. It may also reveal some thing long since forgotten, something considered lost. The very notion of digging and delving into some mysterious part of your life and its associated belongings create an air of excitement. The act of turning over items or fossicking and rifling through books, journals or collected papers is alive with the prospect of discovery or rediscovery.  I admit to deliberately hiding items inside books (notes, business cards, tickets) in or...

BOOK RELEASE YEAH! I am so pleased to announce the release of my new poetry book,  I Bet There's No Broccoli On The Moon -More Poetry From the Search Zone. This anthology of poems follows on from my first collection of poems, the successful,  Searching For Hen's Teeth. You can order my book on line or simply walk into your local bookstore and ask the kind person serving you to order it in for you. Either way, I hope you enjoy it. May the words reach your poet's heart. Here is a taste, a morsel to whet your appetite for more poetry. Hope you like it. Hope you want more... YESTERDAY Yesterday, I knew who my enemies were. I knew where they lived. I knew not to go there. Yesterday, I knew where to play on the school ground And that football was my favourite game in the whole wide world. Yesterday, I knew how disgusting it was to eat sheep brains And broccoli. And oysters. Yesterday, I could fly a kite, Keep a secret, ...

Conventional Wisdom  About Writing Many of us carry scars inflicted by the Grammar Police. Teachers and other adults who could spot an errors from across the room. Much of my childhood was punctuated (sorry, I couldn’t resist that) by zealous red pen people. They frequently reminded me my efforts to write conventionally clearly fell short. I was in need of correction and their written comments were used to reinforce my grammatical shortcomings, my failure to conform to the adult model of acceptable English. I don’t ever recall receiving written comments regarding the intent of my writing. The focus appeared to be purely on the surface features of the writing. It was a deficit model of teaching writing. In reality I was practicing conventions every time I wrote. Every time I wrote, I was moving a smidge closer to becoming a writer who understood how conventions assisted me to convey a clearer message to my readers. Think about it. As we write each letter t...

U npacking T he P oet When I visit schools as part of a  Meet The Author Day,  young writers always arrive brimming with questions regarding the writing life and the work surrounding the publishing of books.  The usual questions arise during the day: Where do you get your ideas? What inspired you to write poetry? Do you have a favourite poem? Do you prefer rhyming verse or free verse? How long have you been writing poetry? How did you get your poetry book published? How long does it take to write a book? These questions are quite normal. But one question (usually posed by Grade 6 boys) always sets me to thinking more deeply about my response. They raise a hand and ask, ‘Do you like sport? This question has been raised with me on numerous occasions and it is always posed by boys. I suspect that in the minds of many boys, poetry and sports are viewed as mutually exclusive pursuits. Poetry is seemingly passive and sport, an active pursuit pref...

MINDFULLY USING LITERATURE TO TEACH WRITING The very best way to learn to write in any particular form, is to read the kind of writing you are hoping to write. If my wish is to write poetry, I must read poetry. If my wish is to write memoir I must spend time reading memoir in order to gain insight about this type of writing. If we wish to teach our students about a particular form of writing we must first become readers of that kind of writing ourselves.  We read like writers. We learn to notice the craft moves writers employ. This is where curriculum begins.  We must seek out all those powerful examples representative of what our students are likely to write. The important work we do in our writing workshop lessons is thus filled with these various kinds of writing. The inexperienced writers needs to view such writing and read such writing in order to better understand how it works. Everything we (and our student writers) need to know about writing...

Writing Under The Influence As teachers of writing we frequently gravitate to the words of authors we admire. We then take their observations about the writing process and apply them to our own writing efforts. However, when we find ourselves reading published works- novels, picture books, news articles, or poems the process that has delivered them is largely hidden. We begin to speculate about what has taken place in order for these profound words to appear before our eyes. We begin to search for answers. We want to empower ourselves in order to be able to empower our student writers. We begin to grow our own understandings in order to develop strategies we can teach our students. This is an exciting development in our teaching. When we move in this space, our teaching is full of possibility. The writing moves of writers we hold in high regard begin to inform our teaching.  We start to consider the impact a particular writing move might make for the developm...

R eading L ike W riters To think how a teacher of writing would read, we must start by thinking how a writer would read. We also need to teach our students to read  in this way, but only after we have helped them become ‘someone who writes.’ I believe the following strategy I first saw used by Katie Wood Ray provides an excellent framework for identifying writing craft in a text: 1. Notice something about the craft of the text 2. Talk about it and make a theory about why a writer might use this craft 3. Give the craft a name 4. Think of other texts you know. Have you seen this craft before? 5. Try and envision using this crafting in your own writing Source: Katie Wood Ray General Observations About Texts What’s the text about? How does this help us think about topic selection? What is the author’s approach to writing? Is there more than one form operating within the text? Who is narrating the piece? Does the text...