Different Kinds of 'Knowing' About Writing

South Downs NWP Convenor and secondary English teacher, Theresa Gooda, discovers more about what happens when teachers write together.

The model of NWP meetings is very simple: you meet somewhere, (mostly online at the moment) and you do some writing, along with other teachers. 

The benefits of NWP meetings are difficult to articulate - and I’m very appreciative of writing teacher colleagues who try to capture quite what is so special about them. There’s camaraderie, of course, and there’s something powerful about the collaborative creation in the writing process, and being part of a writing community seems to translate into classroom confidence.

Many teachers who participate talk about it as being ‘transformative’, and I’m coming to understand that the transformation comes through understanding more about the process of writing through the experience and the reflection. I asked my writers at South Downs NWP what it is that they really know about writing from regular ‘doing’ of writing together. This is what they said.

They understand more about:

• The importance of selecting experiences (in prompts and stimulus material) that students can draw on.

• The value of being able to anchor writing to memory to generate rich response

• The power of sharing words together and using them as building blocks, like Lego

• What a benefit there is from the process of hearing your writing read aloud: how it becomes a form of drafting

• How a greater focus on craft and metacognition in relation to writing leads to a far deeper understanding of how language works and richer writing results
  

We tried to go further and pinpoint ways that classroom practice has changed as a result of this different kind of ‘knowing’ about writing. A selection of the ideas:

• Increased empathy: It’s easy to forget what it feels like to write. Teachers could more readily see and celebrate ‘little wins’ with individual students

• Bringing more, and more diverse texts into the classroom to enrich the curriculum

• Introducing shorter bursts of creative writing more regularly: several times a week for most

• A greater use of freewriting, creating an environment where writing is relaxed and not pressured.

• Encouraging students to begin by writing lists of words (rather than starting with the dreaded ‘plan’)

I’m so grateful, as ever, for the experience of writing with reflective teachers - both for the joy of hearing their words but also for insights like these.

It was also uplifting to hear that NWP Islington managed to meet in person last month. Let’s hope that others can follow suit and meet ‘irl’ very soon.

No Cigarette Breaks

Jenny Corser, Head of Junior English at an independent boarding school in Norfolk, writes about her switch from facilitator to writing participant through NWP, the joy of writing outside the curriculum, and her group’s transition to Zoom one year on from the onset of the Covid19 pandemic.

In every other way, I consider myself to be a ‘facilitator’ of learning. I create situations, tasks and environments to enable my students to write.

But belonging to an NWP group has taught me about the importance of me being a participant in my own classroom. The importance of writing alongside my students in order to share their experiences. To experience the fear of the blank page staring back at you, and then sense of accomplishment when you have completed a piece of creative writing.

How can we justify asking students to write if we are unwilling to model it ourselves? Without that, teachers could easily become hypocrites: “write a poem, but I’m not going to write one” and “read your poem aloud, but I am not willing to share mine.” It’s a bit like the doctor who lectures her patient to quit smoking, and then goes outside for a cigarette break! 

Being an NWP writing teacher also replenishes me with inspiration.

Teaching is a rewarding, yet often draining profession in which we are constantly giving our precious time and energy to students. Belonging to an NWP group gives me time out of my busy week to be inspired with new ideas that I can easily adapt for the age groups I teach. Something else that NWP has given me is the permission and freedom to experiment with teaching techniques that are not necessarily on the school curriculum; for example, book or journal making. There is a real joy in watching students concentrate on sewing the binding of their book and then decorating the cover to make it their own.  

Last week marked the one-year anniversary of our NWP group being on Zoom once a week. At first, I must admit I was skeptical. I could not see how it could translate from our lively monthly meetings gathered around the table at the University of East Anglia - with paper, glue, scissors, gel pens - to being muted on a screen.

But I was wrong!

Whether it is because we meet more regularly so no one feels they are writing ‘from cold’. Or because we are a close-knit group some of whom have been on writing residentials. Or because it avoids that mad rush out of the school gates, driving through traffic and searching for parking. Or perhaps it is because it allows us to write in our homes (perhaps with pyjama bottoms on!) where we feel most comfortable and relaxed. Whatever it is, the formula works.

Over the course of 52 meetings, I have filled two books full of poems, lists, drawings all of which I intend on sharing with my Department. As one member of the group recently commented: “it’s tonic.” 

Lifting off with Zoom Writing

Meeting together to write is such a core principle for the NWP that it has been difficult to know what to do during the lockdown. The answer is, of course, to do what everyone else has been doing and meet virtually.

Inspired by Marjory Caine’s work with the Whodunit NWP, the Southdowns group borrowed the format of some warm up writing exercise together and then a little break to write independently before returning to share work.

As 'Dalloway Day' was earlier in the week, we took inspiration from the RSL and Write and Shine Dalloway Day Celebrations. We began with a simple listing of everyday pleasures: ‘What she loved: life, London and this moment in June’ Woolf says of Clarissa Dalloway. So we listed the everyday things that were giving us joy, or making us smile now. 

Lie-ins in freshly laundered sheets, not having to drive for hours to work, al fresco meals, cuddles with puppies, and the luxury of handwritten letters all featured.

Next we thought about walking. Clarissa Dalloway walks through London to buy flowers for a party. Her walk encompasses the exterior geography at the same time as her interior thoughts and perceptions. At one point she experiences a moment of revelation: her skill is in knowing about people. ‘If you put her in a room with someone up went her back like a cat's or she purred. So we began walking in memory, noticing the detail of a familiar route and what we saw and heard. - with a moment of revelation if one occurred.

For a longer prompt we looked at two very different extracts - Mrs Dalloway entering the flower shop, and Kathleen Jamie in Findings seeing an unfamiliar bird. One fiction and one non-fiction, contrasting 'nature' in urban and rural environments. After some discussion of what was interesting in each piece we set off on a more developed piece of writing retaining the idea of walking as the prompt, with a challenge to consider one of the following: Interior and exterior worlds, something encountered and 'researched’, or playing with unexpected images

As ever, there were delightful results. Two writers mixed images from school with natural ones. A gull that was 'RAG-rated' as amber, and a bindweed whose trumpet flowers heralded the end of term. There was powerful personification in teasing skies and conversations with gate posts, and some metaphysical contemplations on a beach. And, as important as the writing, the pedagogical discussion and thoughts about writing and sharing in the classroom.

So although I was nervous about the workshop, I have discovered that I like virtual writing in the company of others. Of course, I look forward to the time when we can meet in person once more, but for now, this writing is sustaining and continues the collaborative sharing of pedagogy and writing revelation so that to quote Jamie, we can ‘bring it home intact’.