An Awfully Big Blog Adventure

Writing with children - by Steve Way

Doesn’t a month seem like a long time until it gradually dawns on you that there’s only a few days left until your next blog should be ready!

This is only my second ABBA blog and I realised that I had been writing another rant. Despite the fact that the first rant was a light-hearted moan about the apparent obsession local newspapers have about people’s ages (and nothing of substance) and my new piece – now to be stored for later use! – deals with quite different matters, I thought I may begin to appear like a serial moaner.

So instead, given that it’s clear that many of the other contributors and readers of these blogs have visited schools, I thought I would share my ‘rules for writing’ that I’ve used on many school visits over the years. I’m hoping to incorporate them into a piece for teachers entitled Reluctant Writers Resource. They are intended to minimise the methods children often use to avoid writing during a workshop.

Being an expert at avoiding doing any writing whatsoever for long periods, even years at times, I am perhaps well qualified to have developed such a list. I am sure that many of you who have worked in schools in one capacity or another – or with other writing groups, including those populated by adults! – will recognise the excuses I am trying to prevent the children creating or using and appreciate the explanations for including each of ‘rules’.

Steve’s 'Rules for Writing'.

1.    Don’t stress about spellings or punctuation! 

2.   If someone “copies” you it’s a compliment!

3.   If you can’t think of the exact words you want leave a gap or use the best words you can for the moment. IT’S ONLY A FIRST DRAFT!

4.   No “bubble writing” the titles or doing illustrations… yet.

5.   No looking everywhere for pencils, or sharpening pencils forever etc.

6.   If you “can’t think of anything to write” start with that!

7.   Wait until everyone can hear it to share your work.

8.   Please don’t rub words out and then write over them. All ideas are precious!

9.   GET ON WITH IT! The best way to write is to write. 

                                               ~~~~~~~

With regard to rule one, whilst not denigrating the importance of spelling or correct use of punctuation and encouraging the children to write as accurately and correctly as possible, I do also point out that no one has become famous for being good at spelling, whilst a few people have become famous authors and many more find writing a fulfilling process and even make a living from doing so. Some well-known authors have difficulty with spelling. (Correcting spelling and punctuation is the domain of proof readers!) As with rule three I encourage the children to either leave a gap until they find out how to spell the word correctly, spell it as accurately as they can for the time being or look up the word in the dictionary. I’m sure you’ve had children sitting waiting, essentially doing nothing, for a very long time until you or a teacher are sufficiently nearby to supply a spelling!

When discussing rule two I mimic a child wining in complaint that 'he’s copying me miss!' - another popular distraction tactic. I point out that I have just shared several ideas with the children and am quite happy for them to utilise the ideas as a foundation for their own ideas if they wish. I point out that everyone will add their own particular twist to someone else’s idea and that in all sorts of ways we all get ideas from each other. Hence the idea of copying being a compliment. (When I was at school a music teacher kept telling us the 'there's never been an original composer'. I sometimes relate this story to children and how it took me a long time to realise what he meant.)

I often show the children some of my own, far from perfect first drafts, misspellings, incorrect grammar and punctuation etc, which hopefully helps them avoid being over-cautious about accuracy.

Rules four and five speak for themselves (how many children have managed to spend an hour ‘bubble writing’ half a title!) but rule six may seem a little unusual! Whatever the topic, if a child claims that they 'can’t think of anything to write' I insist that, in order to 'get the pen moving' (or their brains in fact!) that they incorporate those words into the first line of their writing. Hence some of the children creating the 'I can’t think of anything to write dragons' (that try to avoid writing about 'people' at dragon school) or 'I can’t think of anything to write' superheroes (who delay criminals trying to rob them by bemoaning this concern until the police show up) etc!

Although we know appropriate thinking time is needed in order to write I’m sure you’ll appreciate that when many children say 'I’m thinking' to explain why they haven't done any writing yet that they really mean 'I’m saying something that sounds good but I’m not actually doing anything really'. So that’s why I really encourage the children to at least begin putting words on the page. I express my belief to them that their ideas will flow the most readily when they are actually writing, not when they’re ‘thinking’ about writing! (How many of us have found that out ourselves!) Hence rule nine. You could discuss the notion that most apparently inactive phase that actually involves a lot of thinking needs to take place between drafts.

Finally, rule eight deals with one bugbear of mine. I also ask the children not to erase any of their writing with a rubber (and then write over the half-erased words, which looks horrible!) I encourage them to just neatly cross out seemingly unsuccessful ideas. I suggest to them that all ideas are precious and explain that the idea they had may work later/in a different context etc and that they’re unlikely to be able to remember it once they’ve obliterated it!

PS

These general lesson focuses for creative writing sessions may also come in useful;

WALT To develop our creative writing skills by writing pieces about…

WILF For you to develop your own ideas around the theme we’re considering, using the pieces presented to you as a springboard to get your writing started!

TIB Creative writing is fun and helps us develop our capacity to be creative, which is how we bring exciting, interesting and sometimes useful ideas into being!

I hope you might find this useful!

My most recent book is Escape from Schoolditz (four teachers make a bid for freedom!) As you would expect the teachers get locked in the staffroom all night - giving them just enough time to do their paperwork - but this rebellious group seem to think they deserve a normal life!