Celebrating the Spread

South Downs NWP Convenor and secondary English teacher, Theresa Gooda, shares her experience of writing as part of the UKLA Teachers’ Writing Group.

As we pass ‘Freedom Day’ and the heightened messages about ‘stopping the spread’, it has been wonderful to welcome a different sort of spread: the proliferation of teachers’ writing groups. It is heartening, in these troubled times, to know that the practice of teachers writing, the opportunity for personal reflection about writing, and the possibility of changing practice through regular dialogic conversations with colleagues about writing, continues to spread.  Because we know, of course, that voice (in writing as well as speech) is ‘created’, both unconsciously but also deliberately constructed, in dialogue with other voices (Bakhtin, 1986).

As well as being privileged to lead the South Downs NWP group, and recently been invited to be part of the wonderful UEA NWP group, I have also lately participated in a new venture at UKLA: their Teachers’ Writing Group, run by Ross Young at Writing 4 Pleasure. They share similar principles with NWP about being part of a community that promotes research-informed writing teaching, and about the importance of being a writing teacher generally. 

Like much of our lockdown and post-lockdown life, meetings are remote, via Zoom. In the first meeting, in early June, participants were invited to experiment with dabbling as an idea generation technique alongside the reading of a children’s book. 

In July’s meeting, the work of writer-teacher Peter Elbow was championed, and in particular the value of free writing. 

Mostly though, the group achieved that joyful, valuable thing we all need: of carving out space and time to write. I’m already looking forward to August’s meeting.

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.

Metaphoraging Memories

Another blogpost from the original archive - by NWP co-founder Simon Wrigley, originally published in December 2018. It links with Jeni Smith’s recent reflections from the Director’s Chair surrounding ‘metaphoraging’, as well as documenting some of the growth of the project over the years, and serving as a further reminder of the strengthening of professional agency that NWP group membership provides.

On November 5 2018, at the invitation of Alison Binney, PGCE mentor, I joined her group of student teachers in Homerton, Cambridge. Alison also runs NWP Cambridge and champions the virtues of creative collaboration in classrooms. Her student teachers were sharing their KS3 classroom approaches to the text and context of Frances Hardinge’s ‘The Lie Tree’.  The room hummed with ideas:

Their pupils would use writing 

• imaginatively to open up spaces in reading texts

• personally in their own notebooks

• collaboratively to grow a ‘tree of lies’ on the classroom wall

• reflectively in detective journals 

• evaluatively in exploring Darwinism and symbolism. 

Their expressive and re-creative writing would be informed by debates, role-plays, ‘rumour soundscapes’ and visits to Wimpole Hall. Their writing would be inspired by mock-trials and by researching gender politics in the 19th century.

This was a luminous example of how, by creating experimental and trusting writing classrooms, pupils develop confidence to use writing for learning - excavating, connecting, reframing.

My role was simply to ask student teachers to discuss the ‘rights of the writer’ – and the professional values that informed writing for learning beyond the tests  - before using the space to write. 

We wrote from remembered sounds, places and people. We used prompts, lists, diagrams. We plundered texts and made close observations of objects. We heard each other’s voices.  We wrote for restoration, discovery and empathy. 

Afterwards we discussed some of the benefits of teachers writing together and alongside students: a reaffirmation of creativity, a sharing of feelings, a new understanding of the process – and its ‘affordances for learning’, and a strengthening  of professional agency.   

Here is a student teacher’s perspective on NWP.

On November 10, Jeni and I ran a writing workshop at the NAWE (National Association of Writers in Education) conference in York. We called our collection of approaches ‘metaphoraging’. Together we foraged the hedges and woods of memory, language and literature for those seeds and berries – those discovered treasures  - that might sustain and fuel and fire our writing. 

The conference brings together a wide variety of professionals: published writers, education officers, lecturers, teachers and therapists – anyone who works with writing and education in schools, hospitals and the community. 

We spoke aloud our favourite words and enjoyed their collisions and resonances: espantapajaros (scarecrow), yee-haa, labyrinth, hoodjamaflip, boing, sellotape, nesh, hallelujah … We shuffled and invented compound words and defined them. We foraged folded paper shapes, sentences, texts and objects for new ideas. 

On December 1, I wrote with the Bedford NWP group. We explored ‘six-word stories’ – e.g. ‘For sale: baby shoes, never worn’ -  how they provoke readers to imagine cause and consequence, to infer and to carry out, what has been implied or folded tight. They can be hors d’oeuvres (out-takes) ‘The murders of kings and sleep’ (Macbeth) or  re-constructions of well-known works: ‘Incineration. Invitation. Visitation. Transformation. Infatuation. Association.’ (Cinderella); 

On December 10, I visited the English team in Haggerston School in Hackney. By writing together, we opened up a discussion of how and why we might reorient classrooms for learning beyond exam results.  The English team wanted students, in addition to their work for exams,  to experience writing as a  safe place to approach uncertainty and difficulty, to release emotion and to take back control of their own stories.

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.” 

Elves in the Basement

In this post, a version of which was first published in Autumn 2015, following the launch of the 26th NWP writing group, NWP co-founder Simon Wrigley reflects on the power and peculiar workings of the imagination and the implications for writing.

Frazzled by the new term though they already were, Luton teachers talked and wrote about, amongst other things, a father’s memory,  the nervous rattle of cup on saucer in the hands of a straight-backed woman, and how a daughter could summon her mother to her bedside by running away. These images and ideas emerged from collaboration.  And there was pleasure, surprise and energy as the teachers overcame their fears and re-acquainted  themselves with the peculiar power of writing lives observed, remembered and imagined.

 ‘Elves in the basement’ was how the neuroscientist, Peter Tse, described the internal workings of the imagination.  This was part of a discussion of ‘ imagination’ on The Forum, Radio 4 29.8.2015.

Apparently brain scans show that some neuronal networks are more active when ‘day-dreaming’ than when the brain is ‘task-oriented’ , and that when we are busy imagining, our ‘elves’  hop about between our conscious and unconscious. So, encouraging imaginative play realises potential while too much ‘deliberative’ action may limit learning. 

Arundhati Subramaniam, who was part of this same discussion, spoke about the verbal choreography of poetry which provoked understandings beyond - and sometimes before - the literal.  It allowed you ‘to get from one point to another without realising how the dots had been joined.’ She also made a special claim for poetry being ‘the only verbal art that embraces silences – the high voltage zones from which a poem draws its life.’ 

She quoted the third of her ‘Quick fix memos for difficult days’,

Some nights you’ve seen enough of earth and sky for one lifetime
But know you still have unfinished business with both.

Six years’ of evidence from NWP groups shows that such a model of voluntary, collaborative creativity is valued by many teachers – and has measurable value to the pupils they teach.  NWP not only supports teachers’ sense of professional agency, but also introduces them to approaches which inform, engage and enrich their writing classrooms.

From the tap end of the bath

South Downs NWP Group Convener and NWP Website Editor Theresa Gooda shares what she has learned from visiting other NWP groups.

In these pandemic times I have managed to travel the country through writing, ‘attending’ meetings in East Anglia, London and Sussex in recent weeks. I have been guilty of repeatedly gatecrashing other groups - remotely of course.

Today marks Day 50 of Lockdown 3 in my part of the world, and writing has been my solace through this most brutal of years. Because I run a group myself, one that has continued to meet via Zoom since March last year, I find that during our meeting time I am not able to truly relax and write. It might be because I’m wondering how everyone else in the group is getting on, reflecting on how I’ve introduced a poem or prompt, checking on what comes next.

So it has been a wonderful privilege to join in with other groups, where I have found my fellow writers so welcoming. And it simply wouldn’t be possible in ‘ordinary’ times.

It has been fascinating to see how each group has its own identity and operates slightly differently. Some share words and drafts and thoughts frequently throughout their session; some save the sharing to the end. Some are asked to think about a theme in advance or bring something along to a Zoom meeting. Some go away from the screen to write, returning to the Zoom call after a certain amount of time. Some keep their cameras on all the way through. Some write one week and share the next. Some collate their drafted writing; others keep their finished work private. Some meet weekly, some monthly, some half-termly.

I’m also struck though, by some of the similarities between them:

Firstly, the warmth, humour and laughter. Is that writers? Teachers? Writing teachers? NWP writing teachers? It permeates everywhere.

Secondly, the recommendations - for books, memoirs, plays, poetry, resources, classroom ideas. There is a constant sharing as reference to one thing triggers memory of another. My ‘to be read’ pile grows and grows, and I am grateful.

Thirdly, the imaginative, creative responses where there are always, always, ‘diamonds’ to be found ‘in the dustheap’ of raw, unpolished writing - as Virginia Woolf might say. I wonder how tired teachers at the end of long days working under the toughest of circumstances pull off such magical images and ideas - but they do it without fail.

Last night, as we were writing ‘I’m from’ lists in response to George Ella Lyon’s ‘Where I’m From’ poem, one member wrote that they were from the ‘tap end of the bath’. The image resonated with me - as the oldest of three siblings, I too was saddled with the tap end. Those five words conjured a childhood world - scorching drips, protruding metal. No, insisted the writer - the tap end is the best part, the warmest part, in control of topping up the water when it’s needed.

So perhaps I can push it to serve as a rich metaphor for the project itself: as NWP members we are very much at the tap end, being ‘refilled’ with each visit.

No more guilt about carving out creative space

Whodunnit Group Convener Marjory Caine discusses her return to writing through NWP.

‘Yes, I used to write, too.’

This was in response to a chance conversation at a NATE session on writing led by Simon Wrigley. We had been asked to jot down our writing memories and then discuss. Was this current lack of writing present across the whole English teaching cohort?

I joined the Whodunnit Group and found many tentative writers – those of us who wanted to write but just did not have the confidence, the time, the incentive, the stimulus. You name it, we had the excuse – but yet we asked our students to write every day – and then judged them.

Simon and Jeni’s approach was a breath of freshness into a classroom practice stultified by assessment objectives and fronted adverbials. As a group, we learnt to write together and share, and appreciate the richness writing brings to us as teachers, and now, writers too.

At the same time, I had started a doctorate investigating the creative writing of my A Level English Language students’ creative writing coursework (yes, in that brief flowering of creative opportunity in the classroom). What I had researched I found in the community of practice of the NWP meetings. 

And I found my voice.

It was a thrice trepanned skull in the Wellcome Collection. And that was where I found a way into the Neolithic world of my character, Rhia. Each writing session would end up with another appearance by her. And then I started writing at home. I made time. I thought about plot and structure. I shared my writing fears with my students. And wrote alongside them. Confidence improved both in the students and in me.

Writing retreats were made possible. I no longer felt guilty about carving out creative space. Here were members from other NWP groups who were willing to share and support. I felt like a writer. I thought like a writer.

And there was always another session with Simon leading our group with exciting and varied prompts. Then came the time when Simon asked me to lead the group. Since then, I have enjoyed the termly challenge of sourcing my source material. The venues are always stimulating because the group members are keen to write. We have been walking writers through Roman London, stood by the River Thames and heard its song, gazed into the faces at the National Portrait Gallery, toured the many stories in Westminster Abbey and many more. Always, I am amazed by the variety and breadth of writing that emerges from a Saturday morning in London.

In the seven years I have been with NWP I have changed from being someone who used to write, to someone who writes regularly, because it is part of who I am. I enjoy the creation of a poem, a piece of prose. I write fiction and non-fiction. I respond to my environment, to the people I know, to new experiences. Having my work valued by the group has given me the right to say that I am a writer who writes. Playing with language, working at finding the best phrase, figuring out a poetic rhythm: these are challenges that enrich my writing life.

Yes, I write. I am a writer.

A lifeline for poetry

NWP Free Spaces Group Convener David Marshall explains some of the challenges of running an NWP group - and why it’s worth it.

I run the London ‘Free Spaces’ group, which meets once or twice a term in different museums and galleries around London. Recently, we’ve been moving towards twice a term, as one didn’t feel quite enough. There’s around 5-7 people who regularly attend and there’s quite a lot of ‘silent’ members, who are on the email list but never attend or participate. I give people the option of being removed from the list, but few ask to be removed. I’d like to think that, though some don’t attend, they like being part of the group nevertheless. The way I see it, it’s important that the group meets regularly so that everyone knows that it’s meeting. That way, there’s always the option for people to come along one day, even if they never have.

One of the challenges is getting more teachers interested. I try to spread the word, but my network is quite limited. The other thing I’m aware of is that most of the regulars are either retired teachers or work in private schools (like me). It is very important for anyone in either of these two categories, but sometimes, I feel like I want it to reach more teachers on the front line of education. But something I remind myself is that the people who come are those who want to be there, and it must be important to them for them to give up their time.

I’m very committed to the group and to running it, even though I’m a full-time teacher. I took over when I returned from living abroad about 3 years ago and found that the group hadn’t met since I left. I emailed round and we started up again. We go to a range of places but find it’s easy to rotate to some of the same ones, particularly places that are central and have big cafes!

For me, the NWP is important because it’s a writing community. I’ve taken writing workshops and courses, some lasting several months. But there’s something great about a community because you’re there for each other over a long period of time and can build relationships. The meeting up for a chat is as important as writing together, sharing work and giving feedback. Often we find the writing leads on to a discussion about world events, politics and other things. It’s like it’s a catalyst for having important conversations that we don’t often have at home or with our colleagues.

It’s also important to me because it’s how I started writing poetry. I attended a workshop run by Jeni Smith and Simon Wrigley about 10 years ago at the British Library (during the NATE conference). Someone mentioned that it was important for English teachers to write in order to be able to teach writing. After this, I started writing regularly and set myself the challenge of writing a poem a day for a year. This got me into it, and helped me to improve. I continued writing regularly, sometimes taking classes and entering competitions or sending work to publications (very little was published). In Shanghai, I was part of a poetry group that produced a home-made zine and hosted open mic nights.

Since returning to London, I haven’t been doing as much writing. It’s been harder to find the time and so the NWP group has been a bit of a lifeline for poetry, keeping it going at least once or twice in a busy term. My aim is to get back to writing little and often. I think I’ll need to set myself a challenge like I did before.

However, there’s no doubt it has affected and improved my teaching of writing. I think the most important change is that it’s helped me to understand how difficult writing actually is. It has given me much more empathy, because I know that I would struggle with certain tasks just as much as the children do. Thinking a bit like a writer also helps me to spot where improvements could be made in a child’s work. It means I’m more able to see, not just what the child needs to do, but how. I can show them the way to make a change in their own writing.

Dip your pen in; writing's lovely

Alison Jermak, secondary English teacher, NWP secretary and NWP Wembley convener writes about her NWP journey and and the value of belonging to a writing group.

I have become quite determined to make space for my writing in my life, because it is one thing that I do for me – that was why I started writing independently at home again really, to make some time for myself between teaching and raising my children.

I write for many reasons: to gain clarity and perspective, to calm myself, to challenge an idea, to connect with people, to throw something out there and gauge the reaction.

Our NWP Wembley group grew from the Whodunnit group that I am a member of. I started the group because I was leaving my first teaching job and before leaving, I wanted to introduce my colleagues to NWP. Meeting regularly once a half term has turned out to be a good way of keeping in touch.

I value the support, the attention, the wisdom and the experience of my fellow NWP writers. We all bring so much enthusiasm for writing, the conversations are always rich and the reading recommendations are good. 

I write in a notebook – I normally have two on the go so that I write in one and then redraft in the other. I reread my writing a couple of days later and highlight anything that interests me. Some of it will then make its way into a piece that I type up. On my laptop I have collection of short stories, life writing and poems that I like to think are fermenting. I then revisit pieces that jump out at me and I will redraft and redraft.

Currently I write for at least ten minutes every day. I’m better in the morning, but I will squeeze it in where ever I can. I write in whichever room in the house I can be alone in; noise at home bothers me, family members – they normally want something.

There have been times where I have taken a short break from writing – a couple of weeks when nothing really calls to me or I’m stuck in a piece and I can’t see where to go next. When I come back to it, the muscle memory kicks in and I’m off again. Once you start, I think you can’t help but think like a writer. I have a notebook by my bed and phrases in the notes section of my phone that have floated in when I’m out and about.

I enjoy the process of coming up with ideas, the unpredictability of it. I like researching and coming up with new ideas for prompts to try out with the group. If it excites me when I try it out, then I know it will work. I’m curious to see how the writers will respond. The variety of writers’ responses is also interesting. I’d like to do some research into the benefits of writing as a group in this way.

Students I teach know that I teach writing differently. Some get excited when I introduce free writing, they enjoy the freedom of it and ask, “When are we going to do free writing again?” Some are confronted by the blank page: “Tell me what to say.” Individuals like it when I talk to them about pieces that they have written.

Being part of the NWP has kept me in teaching. It’s the type of learning experience that I had growing up and that made me want to become a teacher. It’s something that I have a genuine interest in, I can practise writing, begin to master it by myself and together with the group. There’s plenty about writing groups to delve into research wise, it’s unexplored territory. 

I would like to encourage more of the teachers in my department to give writing with NWP a try. There’s so much else that’s in the way, but I would say, “Dip your pen in; writing’s lovely.”  

Taking a selfish risk

Helen Atkinson, Convener of the London Free Spaces NWP Group, writes about a ‘selfish’ choice that led to the greatest change in pedagogy and practice.

It’s the end of June, 2008 and I breathe a guilty sigh of relief as I climb into a teacher friend’s car and begin the drive from London to Cambridge. It’s been another long academic year – when are they not? I’ve had by first taste of middle leadership with an Acting Head of English job in a tough North London school and I’m not certain that I have the energy to get through those final weeks. I’m on my way to Cambridge for the LATE summer conference where I should have elected for a useful weekend workshop on using digital sources when teaching Shakespeare, something that will provide a bank of activities that I can take back to the Department, proof that the CPD budget was a worthy spend. Instead, I have taken a selfish risk and ticked the box to attend a series of workshops called Teachers As Writers that will fill almost all of my time at the conference. The blurb promises that I will spend my weekend on my own personal, reflective and creative writing and this sounds both glorious and very self-indulgent. Ironically, at the end of this weekend, I have not only rediscovered my passion for writing but have experienced the beginning of the greatest and longest lasting influence on my pedagogy and practice.

For over ten years now, the principles of the National Writing Project have run though everything that I’ve done. It is a series of professional networks that explore the way that we teach writing in the best possible way: by writing ourselves and by discussing not only what we write, but how and why it was written. Against the backdrop of endless change and the barrage of ever-falling edicts from above, it has given me the confidence to state that I am my own expert, that I have the agency to change the way that things are done, to make the experience of writing better and more enjoyable for the children that I teach. It’s given me the confidence to argue (and win) the case with Head Teachers for some writing to take place that is not marked for SPaG and a snappy WWW / EBI, to build new ways of teaching and feeding back on writing into the curriculum.

There have been so many Saturday mornings where I’ve lain in bed, as tired as I was on the way to that first conference. It’s felt a super-human effort at times to drag myself to a museum, gallery or park in Central London for the half-termly writing group meeting, but I know that, by the time I leave in early afternoon, I will be wide-awake and brimming with energy and ideas about new things to write, new ways to write, new ways to teach writing.

And I know, from the positive feedback that has come from the NWP Conferences where I’ve run workshops, that I am not alone in feeling this way.

Filling in the small spaces and finding that the sky doesn't fall in

Primary teacher Gillian Pearson reflects on her NWP experience and how writing in a group seems to be an island of support in the frenetic waters of a busy working life.

I had wanted to join a NWP group for many years. I had loved the creative writing course that Jeni Smith had run while I attended my PGCE course 17 years previously, but I kept putting off joining up again. I was busy learning my teaching craft, and battling life’s battles, and all that business seemed all consuming for many years. Gradually, I started to see small spaces in my life that could be filled with other stuff- fun stuff-life outside of my work, my worries, my family and friends. 

NWP sits very nicely indeed alongside work. The sky didn’t fall in from leaving work early once a month, and joining a lovely little group. I feel a bit sorry for all my friends who haven’t got a Jeni in their lives, as a very special writing mentor. Some people might know lots of people like Jeni - there may be a whole army of these wonderful people out there - but I only know one, and for that I am happy.

The NWP for me is a small gateway into a surprising corner that has special powers, and is almost hidden from everyday life. It is like the school (I love the way many small primary schools are often hidden from the road) and like a book (there is a small perfectly formed world constantly unfolding inside).

Anyway, the group is there. I always go. I never dread going, or feel uneasy about going, or just can’t be bothered going. I go. 

The other teachers there are lovely. I really like them. I feel their struggles and I admire that many are juggling so many things. I like listening to them and sharing with them and making and folding mini books with them. We talk a lot about teaching and writing and life and books.

And in between we write.

We write differently: some in small neat careful handwriting; some after much internal thought and some, like me, all in one go. Get it out, that misspelt scruffy scrawl and read it through later. I see my entire class reflected in our styles. How do I help those writers like myself, and those not like me? These are questions I often ponder.

I quite like writing. I always write with the kids. If I expect them to write something, then I need to feel what that feels like too. What kind of language might be needed? How to engage our audience? What techniques can be drawn upon? If I’m writing with them, then we can have a proper dialogue about the work and share what we have got. My writers aren’t always the best in the world, but they write unhindered, and at length, and are usually very happy to share their work.

I think I am re-learning the importance of sharing from the writers group and from Jeni; to help the children find their voice, to make a mark and create and discuss.

I still have much work to do in learning how to inspire my young followers. My work here is not done. My journey is a long loop. I forever re learn what I have forgotten with new twists and shapes and ripples.

Jeni’s leadership of our group holds slippery answers and golden nuggets. Her flickering inspiration is part of many flickering lights that help shape my teaching, twinkling stars which I dart to and from like I’m forming a dot to dot puzzle of how to teach writing. My little followers might sense this frenetic dance from time to time but that is fine: we are on a journey and NWP is a calm island of support along that long and winding road; one that never judges or asks for evidence or has a success criteria.

It just is - and that for me is enough.

Giving voice to the things inside

Teacher Writer Katie Kibbler shares her NWP journey - and tips for curing a hangover…

I joined NWP’s Whodunnit group towards the end of 2017. I had known about NWP since I was a PGCE student in 2014, when Simon Wrigley had been to give a workshop on book-making at the Cambridge Faculty of Education. I hadn’t attended a group because I’d always found an excuse: I’d start when I’d completed my NQT year; I’d never be able to make 10am meets on a Saturday morning; I didn’t have time, I didn’t have energy, Friday evenings in the pub poisoned all my creative juices and I couldn’t write on a hangover. After three years at my first school, in 2017 I had decided to leave and join the Children’s Hospital School at GOSH and UCH. The move gave me the freedom, time and sleep that I just hadn’t had as a newbie teacher in a high-octane inner London academy. 

A few weeks into my new job, I stumbled onto the NWP website while trying to find some creative writing prompts for a student and found the list of teacher writing groups. I emailed Simon, the group leader for Whodunnit. This wasn’t the first time - I’d emailed him a year before, and chickened out of attending. Apparently forgiving my previous flakiness, Simon was very warm in his reply, and gave me the joining details: I was very welcome, writing expertise was not a prerequisite, and in a lovely twist of chance, the group would next meet in the Wellcome cafe - a twenty minute cycle from my home, purveyor of excellent cakes, and promisingly friendly in name. I told myself I’d just turn up, do one session, and if I was terrible I could just abandon it on the pile of my other failed whims, along with rocket yoga, jam-making and knitting giant snoods. 

I arrived sweaty and windswept, slung my bike up on Euston Road and pushed through the revolving doors into the shiny calm of the museum. Saturday sluggishness became a nervous fizz, as I found most of the group already set up, cafe tables pulled together, hands wrapped around frothy coffees in thick turquoise cups - and my new colleague, Emma, perched on a stool. We hadn’t discussed the group together - neither of us knew the other would be there - and the coincidence was confirmation that I had come to the right place, both in terms of the group and my new school. The session ended with the group sharing our morning’s writing upstairs in the reading room and being told off for too much giggling. I had approximately zero regrets about attending, and since then I’ve tried to attend every meet (even during a hiatus in Uganda last year, I used the prompts remotely). Completing my journey from scared, sheepish, semi-coherent-on-a-Saturday starter to fully-fledged NWP enthusiast, I jumped at the chance to double my writing group attendance when Alison, a Whodunnit stalwart, invited us to join her Wembley group too. 

In the groups, we take time to reflect on the process of writing as a person and as a professional: a teacher, and a human. What I knew but didn’t understand was that I had always written (from painful teenage poetry to spoof features in a university newspaper to silly blogs about early-career car crashes in the classroom) - but nothing I’d regard as ‘proper’ writing. If I couldn’t be Dylan Thomas or Zadie Smith, what was the point? What NWP has shown me is that the point for us (as teachers, as humans) is the same as it is for our young people: to give voice to the things inside that we don’t always find the place or time to say; to do something we find creative, good and challenging; to feel part of a supportive community; to look closely at and set in context the small and extraordinary and banal and enormous things we don’t have time to in the rush of an ordinary timetable. Nobody cares if it is 'good' or 'bad', or agrees on what those qualities look like. Whenever I find the mean voice of necessity trying to stymie the pure, free-wheeling pleasure of a free-write, or the unpretty bloom of an idea, I speak to myself the words of reassurance I’d offer a student: writing is not self-indulgent, it is being alive to the world around you. It isn’t egoism to write; it is empathy.

It sounds dramatic, but being part of the NWP groups has changed my teaching and my life (and made me see how much of our life we put into teaching, and how much teaching gets into life - how porous that boundary is). I am now teaching in the mainstream classroom again, and credit our NWP writing groups with helping preserve my sense of self when I’m at home (or away, as I was last year), and when I’m standing firm about the type of teacher I want to be in school: the type who runs Creative Writing Club using the same format as our teacher writing groups (albeit in slightly less stately surroundings than a London gallery, with less caffeine and more crisps); who tries to model creative writing as a point about courage, process and spontaneity, instead of precision, assessment objectives and attainment. I have recycled whole NWP sessions as two-hour writing workshops for my Year 10s in a bid to avoid death by GCSE practice papers - the students’ writing was miles better than normal, and so was my lesson planning. And in a less soaring-strings orchestral epiphany kind of way, being part of NWP has improved my (wait for it) marking, feedback and analysis, too: it’s so much more natural and genuine for me to say what I think is interesting about a piece of writing, why it is working, how it is working and what it is making me feel and think, now that I’ve started to regularly get inside writing myself and drive the car - and now it’s not the sleek ride of self-reflexive non-fiction, but the honest, unfinished chaos of a soapbox racer. It’s made me simultaneously more rigorous about teaching writing, and more compassionate; speaking from a position of ‘I do this too, and we are in this together’ is so powerful for the students. The teacher gets to be the person who writes with us, not the master who presents the task of writing to us. 

Please, go and find your own NWP group - and if there isn’t one close, make your own! Whatever excuses you’re making for yourself, stop. For what it’s worth, I’m pleased to report that there’s no hangover a coffee and a communal writing session won’t help. 

What writing has done for me

Sam Brackenbury reflects on his NWP writing experiences

Prior to this year, I had found it difficult to commit to regular writing; meaning, aside from note taking and planning, I only wrote when attending a writing meeting each month. Work and keeping up with friends or family had prevented a habit forming but this year I have managed to keep to writing at least four times a week in the evenings, which has been extended to almost every night during this period of lockdown!

The spaces I use for writing depend on the weather and the task at hand.  Usually, I’ll write at the centre of the house or out in the garden facing the apple tree and blackberry bush, always surrounded by background noise and the quiet goings on of others so that part of my brain that refuses to rest is slowly guided into stillness and focus.

The writing for myself is usually splurged and instinctive, responding to thoughts, words or prompts. In the best moments, I tend to keep my pen busy in the knowledge that the act of writing will eventually help me produce the words I need: an established idea, a thought explored or a turn of phrase I am happy with. It is often messy, with asterisks or shapes signalling revisions and after thoughts, and rarely will I look back at a piece of writing a day later. Once it is written it is written!

When in groups, the writing I enjoy most is the creation of lists. I like the free-writing and the many directions this takes your thoughts before the discussion of words, listing and listening; enjoying the connections and sounds as collections are shared.

The wonder when a random run of words incidentally creates something interesting, funny or poignant is always magic.

The best lists always include carefully chosen words, based on sound, shape or personal meaning, or highlight the hidden magic in everyday language, never the fabled ‘wow words’. Much of this is in the performance of a word or phrase as the words that are used.

When writing at length or by myself, I find memoir by far the most interesting and successful form of writing. I think this is because there is always something specific to latch onto, something about good food or “A time you have itched (physically or metaphorically)” for instance, which helps you start. For me, memoir also guides my brain and thoughts to link the past events to present matters through the people, events or sentiments in each piece. It might be something trivial, usually surrounding a want for food, or something more meaningful like something to be done or avoided, a connection to re-establish or a useful reflection to guide future decisions.

Having recently committed to setting aside time in the week to write for myself, I want to try and continue to do so consistently. I know that the act of writing improves the teaching of writing so I hope I can sustain the habit in the knowledge that this will enrich my practice.

Writing teachers has formed a key part of my professional development for the past six years. Just as the act of writing stimulates writing (Elbow), the act of writing with other teachers develops your teaching of writing and your role as the chief facilitator in a community of writers. The sessions improve your awareness of the complexities and emotional investment that come with creating, meaning that you are more empathetic when listening, appraising and establishing routines for critique. A ‘thank you’ has always become a custom response at any level of critique after so all contributions feel valued and I endeavour to explain how an idea has made me think or feel as often as possible. This level of sensitivity extends to offering how much someone might like to share, even if it is usually the whole piece! Equally, word and sentence level discussions exploring how words work together occur almost daily so that children get regular opportunities to orally compose and explore whilst recognising the strength in shared composition. Until recently, I found these functioned best in shared or guided writing however a small project involving paired writing with rather young writers demonstrated that the climate . Attending writing meetings contributed to developing the courage to let the children go, believing they could talk well, splurge and then refine independently just as we had done so when together.

It is these writerly conversations, and a focus on the process of writing over product, that has had the biggest transformation on my practice and ultimately the outcomes for those I teach – those that can be easily measured and those which are perhaps more difficult.

Teacher writing groups also demonstrate how we must think carefully about task design, being mindful to find aspects that are open ended and allow children to play, self-embellish and invest. This awareness is developed through listening and partaking in the appraisal of an exercise when writing alongside adults, discussing whether the brief was too open or pitched well and aspects that led to blank spots. These thoughts translate well into the classroom as you design learning opportunities, becoming aware of how much structure you should offer and recognising the need to balance exercises that are structured and those invite complete ownership over an extended period of time.

The conversations are another powerful aspect of joining a group. It is an opportunity for honest reflection about how writing works in our individual schools and classrooms, to find antidotes for problems with cohorts or strategies for adding in what you know works amidst the constraints of the curriculum. In this way, it can help you self-select aspects of your practice that could be improved.

Attending a group regularly reminds me of the need to include more low stakes, high investment opportunities as I know from the experiences of fellow attendees that these are powerful in allowing children to develop their own sense of voice and perceive themselves as a writer. I also know through anecdotes from group members that I need to write more regularly alongside the children as well as teach, so that they see this development as important.

It is very hard to summarise the value of attending to someone thinking of joining but, once started, you just know it is good stuff. It feels right and though you might not wish to replicate the exercises themselves in class, the process of writing, perhaps rediscovering writing again, is invaluable and unbelievable informative for teachers of all stages and levels of experience. Through attending, I would hope that the children I teach see me as someone who is passionate about exploring and playing with interesting words or phrases; choosing these carefully so that a listener appreciates how they were thinking, creating pictures and feelings. That a writer is a good listener and I am someone who carefully, sensitively appreciates their written work and shows it has value. I would hope they would see I value the development of their own written voice as important.

I hope the reach and influence of the project grows tremendously. The sessions are valuable to experienced and newly qualified teachers as they help to develop those who attend in different ways, the way that they need at that time, and this manifests in the learning opportunities they deliver to young people. This might owe to mimicking an activity used during a session or encouraging a way of thinking and being when writing after attendance over time. Consequently, the NWP could play a really key role in re-shaping the understanding and conceptualisation of writing in schools across the country, resulting in a teacher-led change to how it is taught and experienced in the classroom.

Sam has taught throughout KS2 across two schools since completing his PGCE in 2014. Currently, he is a teacher and Senior Leader in a two-form entry Primary in Norfolk, where he is responsible for a Year 3 class and English provision across the school. He is a secretary for the NWP.

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’.

What matters...about teachers writing

A benefit of lockdown has been the time and space to read widely, coupled with the release of a number of interesting books about writing and education generally - one of which is What Matters in English Teaching; Barbara Bleiman’s new book published by the English & Media Centre, collecting together Bleimna’s blogs and speeches and other writings from the early nineties up until the present day.

This perspective enables a rich overview of the way that different trends, concerns and battlegrounds in English have changed over time. Bleiman pinpoints 2001, around the time when writing frames were being introduced, as coinciding with the first moment when students started to be told that they must ‘include’ certain elements in their writing as ‘proof of knowledge of the genre’. Persuade, she observes, was different from argue or inform, ‘despite the fact that in the real world, no non-fiction writer would set out to do one of these things in isolation but would almost certainly have many overlapping purposes and techniques to fit his or her intentions’ (p121).

On what makes good writing, she is clear that there is no rigid, set pattern or approach as there is for the write-up of a science experiment or an answer to a Maths problem, because ‘creative writing cannot be reduced to a formula’ (p119).

Bleiman explicitly acknowledges the role of the NWP in helping to shape writing debates. ‘In the UK, Simon Wrigley and Jen Smith, under the aegis of NATE, have been running teacher/writer groups for many years, where teachers write for themselves and then share the implications for their teaching’ (p123).

She is clear about the way in which teachers writing for themselves empowers them in pedagogical approach. In relation to the role of planning, she observes that ‘teachers asked to write can sometimes surprise themselves by how little they use the planning structures they impose on their students’ (p124).

Also, because the role of drafting and redrafting has shrunk in the absence of coursework or controlled assessment When teachers write themselves, they become aware of how much more can be done to a first draft to sharpen it up and develop it’ (p124).

She explores the ways in which being a writer enables readers to read differently, ‘and better’ (p125), noting that a key element of both reading as a writer and writing as a reader is the idea that ‘small experiments, tests, trying things out, having a go, being playful, taking little unrisky risks, is extremely valuable, regardless of the ‘success’ of the end product’ (p141).

It was wonderful to read something which resonated powerfully with many of the principles of NWP.

So, I’m heartened, and inspired - and just off to have a go with some unrisky risks in response to some of our lockdown writing prompts.

Theresa Gooda

Permissions that our workplaces don't provide

NWP secretary Alison Jermak discusses her evolution into a writing teacher:

‘It is felt that you would benefit more from this (training) after your return from maternity leave.’

It is not discrimination or financial limitations imposed upon schools that I will write about here, but the decision that I made in response to the above: if the school that employed me was not going to invest in developing me professionally, then I would do it myself.

The pursuit of this led me to a LATE conference where I was introduced to NWP UK. 

From Blob to Blog…

You see, I never read the papers when Michael Gove called us ‘the blob’, but in my workplace I knew that teachers were angry about it. By naming my profession in that dehumanizing way, not only did it give him license, but also management to treat us as they chose.

What resulted in my school was increased fear, anxiety and anger. Established teachers, staff that I looked up to, I found crying in the staffroom, holding whispered conversations in classrooms at the end of the day, being ‘supported’ (bullied) through capability measures – they were disappearing.

My reasons for teaching: I wanted to work with young people, to share my passion for my subject. But as Kahn points out, ‘in the absence of care felt, when other co-workers communicate a lack of caring, respect, or appreciation for one’s work, meaningfulness decreases.’

Let’s consider other anxiety-provoking features introduced into our workload over the time that I have been teaching: data deadlines, the threat of Ofsted; both a distraction from the tasks in hand.

Teachers are innovators. We recognise that ‘creativity and innovation are necessary for organisational adaptation and survival.’ (Reiter-Palmon) We seek out universities, libraries, cafes and museums; places that will stimulate us intellectually and creatively. The writing group provides what psychologists call a ‘holding environment’ (Kahn, 2001), creating feelings of safety where a teacher can feel able to show and employ one’s self in the discussion and writing.

Writing can be a way to exercise emotions, but can also be a vehicle for generating purpose and direction (Speara, Morin, Buhifeind, Pennebaker, 1993). Writing together allows us to explore the possibilities for writing in the classroom, but also for ourselves; giving me the confidence to write as I am now.

At NWP we give each other permissions that our workplaces have yet to provide. 

Why join a writing group?

NWP co-chair Emily Rowe explains how she first joined the project - and the power of a writing group.

“I first came across the National Writing Project when I was training to be a primary school teacher at the University of East Anglia. Through attending Writing Teachers groups firstly at UEA, then Ipswich and now recently with my fellow schools in our academy trust.

“I have found my teaching of writing in the classroom to be enriched through my own experiences of writing within a community of teachers. I have grown to understand the delicate nature of learning to write and how the experience of writing for yourself enables you to understand and teach writing at a much deeper level.

Writing from February 8th NWP Meeting at the National Portrait Gallery

“Most importantly, I’ve seen first-hand the impact that this has had on my pupils. I find the sessions invigorating – with space to experiment with my own words and to also consider how activities and ideas can be adapted to suit the needs of the children in my class. I particularly enjoy meeting with teachers who work with a range of children from Early Years to A-levels, of whom all give and take from the sessions in equal amounts. It has been the most influential form of CPD during my three years of teaching, with each session I have attended being led by the co-founder of NWP – Dr Jeni Smith.

“It can be hard to explain to teachers why they should come along to a Writing Teachers group, particularly if they are not from an English background and feel nervous about the prospect of writing, but once they’re through the door I’ve always known them to come back!”

Join a Group

10 Years of NWP

The National Writing Project is now a decade old in the UK: a worthy achievement and a significant milestone deserving of celebration.

At its heart that is ten years of encouraging and supporting teachers to become experts in the teaching of writing through a network of teachers’ writing groups. London’s ‘Whodunit group’ is one of the oldest and well-established of these, so it is fitting that it is their meeting this month which is being taken over to mark this special anniversary on Saturday 25th January.

We will meet at the Wellcome Collection, a museum on the Euston Road in London, in the cafe at 10am. NWP co-founder, Jeni Smith promises ‘writing fun and games’ between 10am and 1pm. The current exhibition at the Wellcome is called ‘Play Well’ and considers the transformational impact of play in our lives, so prompts will, of course, be appropriately playful!

All are welcome to join us. If you are an NWP member past or present, or considering becoming one in the future - and you are in London that weekend - come out and play! It will be the perfect opportunity to meet up with others from the NWP community, to write, to share, and to celebrate how far the project has come.

Started back in 2009 by Jenifer Smith, University of East Anglia, and by Simon Wrigley, English adviser for Buckinghamshire, 2004-2013, and chair of NATE, 2004-6, the UK’s project built on the long-running, successful US National Writing Project. Since then it has evolved through exciting partnerships, research and collaboration, carefully cultivated by the huge commitment, creative ideas and winning inspiration of Jeni and Simon.

Here’s to the next decade!

Spreading the word

NWP has been spreading the word about Writing Teachers groups at Goldsmith’s University, London.

Co-chairs, Jeni Smith and Emily Rowe received a warm welcome at the University during a recent conference about creative writing in schools. It was a great opportunity to engage with a receptive audience of PGCE students and English teachers. Students and teachers wrote together and spent time discussing how being a part of the NWP can develop individuals both personally and professionally. Jeni and Emily gained a highly positive response, with many seeking information about existing writing groups or how to start one.

“We were reminded of the deep concern felt by many teachers regarding the teaching of English within our current educational system - but we are certainly heartened by the bold and thoughtful teachers and prospective teachers whom we met,” explained Emily.

Happy new year to all, and we hope that the National Writing Project will continue to reach new teacher writers in 2020.