Hi friends from the writing course
If I ever reach you in blogger mode, may I say how good it was to reconnect yesterday. The course has been a tonic.
We must try to stay in contact and to help each other. I was so impressed by what everyone has been doing in the past three weeks. Carol and Ellen's little children are an inspiration. We need to chart their progress. These children will not be found wanting in any PIRL's test in the future. The powers that be should take note. We need pilot schools and pilit groups within other ones.
I marked something from a grade 10 student who wrote in her letter to a famous person, I presume to be a lover (!) that she has this eccentric teacher who has been on a writing course and who is making all her students write as part of her assignments! She ends off by telling him that she wll let him know whether she will be chastised for using the expression - 'mother f...' I was quite surprised, but not totally. Anyway that is one reaction to my efforts at creative inspiration!
After yesterday I realized that I had to get to 'ba ba bling'. That might send the sceptics over the edge... In turn I must urge y'all to try out the Pantoum. It is such a satisfying exercise. When in doubt, google it. At the same time show them mandalas. Such satisfying shapes.
Sunday 5 August 2012
Tuesday 31 July 2012
Blog the second - the day draws nearer
Today we tried more writing; my 'My Story'. Each girl chose a symbol for the memory on her timeline, a colour, some dialogue, and then she drew a picture of it. I read them an extract from ''Tis" by Frank McCourt, the part where mother manages to get hold of a bed from the St vincent de Paul Society. Then they wrote.
I think that they should work in groups tomorrow and do some editing. this writing has made me think about how to correct the work; how to perfect it. It needs reworking, not for me to mark and then smash on to the next exciting episode.
This is the area that I must concentrate on. Otherwise we do isolated exercises that are often forgotten. I need to find a way to develop better writing skills that will endure!
The reading works. They enjoy it, but how to translate this into fostering better writing techniques.
I think that they should work in groups tomorrow and do some editing. this writing has made me think about how to correct the work; how to perfect it. It needs reworking, not for me to mark and then smash on to the next exciting episode.
This is the area that I must concentrate on. Otherwise we do isolated exercises that are often forgotten. I need to find a way to develop better writing skills that will endure!
The reading works. They enjoy it, but how to translate this into fostering better writing techniques.
Monday 30 July 2012
This has been a journey to try to teach as much as possible in under three weeks while trying to finish setworks and other tasks. I have tried fameworks for writing poetry with figures of speech - poems like the Langston Hughes:
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow
I asked the girls to use this framework, inserting two of their own metaphors. In retrospect we needed to go back and revise some pretty indifferen and even weak similes.
We also used the exercise suggested by Jacqui in resonse to the image of the woman under a burden:
Look at her hands
Raw, knobbly and calloused.
Look at her face
Like a bean skin soaked in brine
Once again they had to create their own similes as well as the appropriate adjectives.
In a recent Taste magazine I saw an entry (in a coffee shop, so I do not have the original). The woman interviewed was asked for five things that she loves. She listed five favourites and an explanation for each. She included her chef's knife and how she wants to take it when she goes away - a woman after my own heart. When we rent a house in Plett, I take my knife! She also listed her pasta-making machine - it has been passed down to her from her friend's Italian granny. I told my students that my most precious possession is my great-grand mother's silver teapot with an inscription on it from three of her children on the occasion of her 25th wedding anniversary. I love it because I know that many of my forbears have admired it and touched it. Some of my students think that I am touched! But they love items from their past - rings, a rosary from a grandmother, and other pieces of memorabilia. One loves her vintage clothes, while another loves her 12 eye liners - she has a passion for them! Yet another has a penchant for bright red lipstick.
We then smashed on to recording first sentences from books we have loved. They were asked to write down five. This went very well and they were read and enjoyed in groups. One of my favourites is Nick's words in the Great Gatsby: 'In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.' He then goes on to tell his son to remember that not everyone is fortunate enough to have had the opportunities that he has had. If I had $ 10 for every time I quote this advice to my daughters and students, I would be able to go and visit my daughrter in New York!
I have done most of these exercises myself to show interest and to test the system. I must admit that I work a lot harder than most, if not all of my students! Am I too enthusiastic? Possibly. I do not wish to digress but I fear that I put one of my children off reading completely with my enthusiasm. Where did I go wrong, I ask as a distressed parent.
Our final step is to start a timeline in preparation for the piece on myself. Step one was to chart the major events and then to highlight one. Step two was to write a piece of dialogue on the event, to choose a symbol, characters and a colour associated with it. Everyone has written something about her name - background, meaning, nickname. This they enjoyed. Finally we are going to write our story - To know me, you must know my story.
Jacqui and other friends of the writing course due to meet on August 4 - here I am: late but getting there at the last minute. Please God I can find my place tomorrow to write anothe exciting episode!
Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly
Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow
I asked the girls to use this framework, inserting two of their own metaphors. In retrospect we needed to go back and revise some pretty indifferen and even weak similes.
We also used the exercise suggested by Jacqui in resonse to the image of the woman under a burden:
Look at her hands
Raw, knobbly and calloused.
Look at her face
Like a bean skin soaked in brine
Once again they had to create their own similes as well as the appropriate adjectives.
In a recent Taste magazine I saw an entry (in a coffee shop, so I do not have the original). The woman interviewed was asked for five things that she loves. She listed five favourites and an explanation for each. She included her chef's knife and how she wants to take it when she goes away - a woman after my own heart. When we rent a house in Plett, I take my knife! She also listed her pasta-making machine - it has been passed down to her from her friend's Italian granny. I told my students that my most precious possession is my great-grand mother's silver teapot with an inscription on it from three of her children on the occasion of her 25th wedding anniversary. I love it because I know that many of my forbears have admired it and touched it. Some of my students think that I am touched! But they love items from their past - rings, a rosary from a grandmother, and other pieces of memorabilia. One loves her vintage clothes, while another loves her 12 eye liners - she has a passion for them! Yet another has a penchant for bright red lipstick.
We then smashed on to recording first sentences from books we have loved. They were asked to write down five. This went very well and they were read and enjoyed in groups. One of my favourites is Nick's words in the Great Gatsby: 'In my younger and more vulnerable years my father gave me some advice that I've been turning over in my mind ever since.' He then goes on to tell his son to remember that not everyone is fortunate enough to have had the opportunities that he has had. If I had $ 10 for every time I quote this advice to my daughters and students, I would be able to go and visit my daughrter in New York!
I have done most of these exercises myself to show interest and to test the system. I must admit that I work a lot harder than most, if not all of my students! Am I too enthusiastic? Possibly. I do not wish to digress but I fear that I put one of my children off reading completely with my enthusiasm. Where did I go wrong, I ask as a distressed parent.
Our final step is to start a timeline in preparation for the piece on myself. Step one was to chart the major events and then to highlight one. Step two was to write a piece of dialogue on the event, to choose a symbol, characters and a colour associated with it. Everyone has written something about her name - background, meaning, nickname. This they enjoyed. Finally we are going to write our story - To know me, you must know my story.
Jacqui and other friends of the writing course due to meet on August 4 - here I am: late but getting there at the last minute. Please God I can find my place tomorrow to write anothe exciting episode!
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