I was delighted that NWP were once again invited to run a writing workshop at the UKLA International Conference, 60 Years of UKLA Making a Difference, on Friday 5th July. I had hoped to be at the workshop with the wonderful Theresa Gooda, but she was, alas, not able to be there in the morning. You may have encountered her at other sessions and workshops throughout the conference; we would both love to hear from you if you were there.
In preparing for this workshop I thought about what we, within NWP, have learned from children and each other as we write and reflect together in many different contexts. We are coming to better understand, through long-term, informal ethnographic study, the nature of writing and the teaching of writing as practice.
When adults and children are given the freedom to take ownership of their writing, one sees, again and again, the essential human nature of writing and its links to drawing, making, thinking and language; its relationship with the mind, spirit and body. To feel confident about writing and to be aware of oneself as a person who writes is a powerful thing. If students are to learn to write, we must honour their language and give them space and freedom to be playful, subversive, inventive, experimental. None of us, adult or child need have writing imposed on us. We learn writing, as Anne Enright says, from the inside out. When teachers write together we learn about ourselves as writers and, collectively, think about those we teach and the ways in which we set up the conditions that allow that inside out learning in our writing classrooms.
Now, more than ever, teachers and children need to take back the pleasure and the power of language that is a part of who we are.