Descriptive and Creative Writing
Creative Writing
The status of creative writing is curious; Gunther Kress questioned purposefully as to why it is even necessary when most people will not be professional writers. Morso than that, the time needed to write can be consuming. However, in every curriculum the ability to both sense and maybe even control perception is a civilising experience.
Reconciling a writing identity with a teaching identity is an ongoing battle: here I share some of my writing (albeit much of it exists as fragments elsewhere). The act of writing creatively is a resolute action.
It is in the spirit of the fragments I currently write and in the need for students to pass descriptive writing tests, I have developed some programmes and approaches that will hopefully do both without undue compromise.
To blog or not to blog?
Our school perhaps doesn't have the perfect culture for writing. However, our school does have an exceptional reading culture. Unlike other places I've worked (some rated as having outstanding English departments), every student has a reading book with them at all...
Random Dice
My year 7s have recently taken a Christmas break from a creative writing project. Much like the Choose Your Own Adventure, we ended each lesson on the students picking on of two cliffhangers, and rolling a dice to decide which would form the basis of the next story....
Visual Thesaurus
Sometimes encouraging pupils to produce literature coursework is difficult because the spirit isn't willing. While they see the adult-needs purpose of getting an English qualification, I have sometimes heard voiced the objection that they find discussing the...
Creative Writing and Hard Copy Publishing
There is something about the physical feel of a book in your hands that will never change. While I'm yet to purchase a kindle - and the requisite pair of glasses to go with it - I don't fancy taking one into the bath (apologies to our Librarian, I don't take books...
Creative Writing – 1000keyboards.com
If a thousand students typed at a thousand computers for a thousand hours, would they write a decent story? Regardless, it would be an experience worth reading. www.1000keyboards.com is a new website that offers pupils an extension of, and extended audience for, their...
HiStoryboards
Writing for a real audience is an emphasis of the new English curriculum, and just a damn good idea I say. With this in mind a friend of mine who trained in History at York University at the same time as I trained in English suggested the ambitious notion of creating...
Constructing interactive adventure books
Interactive adventure fiction is, after dying an awful pageless death in the 80s, back again! At least in one North Yorkshire school where pupils are pioneering the use of interactive fiction. A google of interactive fiction will bring up the hideous Zork-style...
