Back to School: September Writing Prompts

Through lockdown and over the summer I have managed to establish some good writing habits. My journal is never far away and, consequently, is bursting full.

Every year, though, September hits me like a train and those writing habits evaporate - generally alongside taking in the first pile of marking. It really shouldn’t be so hard to find the ten or fifteen minutes in a day to sit, reflect and allow the pen to talk to the page, but somehow it always is. Even though I know that it is good me, not just for my energy and well-being but as ever-present, brilliant CPD that will make a difference in the classroom.

Because our month of lockdown prompts proved so popular, Jeni Smith has been busy putting together another series of ideas to carry us all through September and the start of the new year.

Jeni explains how important it is to find that space for our own writing:

Writing is often the thing that we set aside for other things, for other people. We make appointments for the dentist, to see an anxious A level student, to help a colleague. Make an appointment with your writing. If you have a calendar write it in there. Colour code it. Put it on your phone and set the alarm. You need only fifteen minutes. If that is all you have between one thing and another, set a timer just short of the time you have available and get going.

The prompts for September are a mixed bag. Most of them should just set you going for a fifteen minute workout. Some may grow into something more extended so you may not wish to do a new prompt each day, but continue from where you left off. Many of the prompts have your professional life as a teacher in mind. I am inviting you, if you are so inclined, to use writing to reflect on your teaching. You may find you use just a few prompts over the course of the month. Many can be revisited daily. In the end, they are only prompts. Use them however you wish. You may even find that you use them as children do when they tell you they are bored. After you have listed a number of things they don’t want to do, they suddenly say, ‘Oh, I know what I’ll do.’ Go ahead!

So, no excuses. Keep your writing habit going through the new term, or cultivate a new one.

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’.

National Writing Day 2020

Here at NWP we shall, of course, be celebrating and supporting National Writing Day, which takes place on Wednesday June 24th this year.

The underlying principles of this celebration of writing absolutely accord with NWP aims. In particular, the idea that students feel what it’s like to be a writer, and get on with doing writing. Young people can develop their own voices by choosing what they want to say and how they want to say it. National Writing Day gives students the impetus to write, first and foremost, for themselves.

Free resources and ideas are available from First Story here, and the BBC will be promoting National Writing Day in all their daily lessons on the 24th. With many schools having extended their opening beyond vulnerable children and the children of key workers now to Reception, Year 1, Year 6, Year 10 and Year 12, this could be a great way to kickstart writing in the classroom once more.

Let us know what you are doing in the classroom for National Writing Day.

Writing Spaces

The Writer’s Desk by Jill Krementz is full of wonderful images of writers at work in their writing spaces. My favourite is Jean Piaget who claims a ‘living order’ to what looks to the outsider like utter chaos.

At the NWP we’d like to celebrate our sacred writing places, too. Do you have a dedicated place to write, or are you a writer on the move? The idea is to share the secrets of our writing spaces in all their chaotic, cluttered glory or meticulous organisation. You can see the first few on our Writing Spaces page in the gallery. We’d love to see more.

We also hope that you enjoyed the Thirty Days of Writing Prompts provided by Jeni over these lockdown days. If you have written anything in response that you would be happy to share in the Teacher Writes section of the website, let us know.

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

Musings of a writer/web admin/teacher/gardener under quarantine

Stephen Jacklin, NWP web administrator, wrote, on the 7th April:

I am currently wondering why…

1) …I have so much to do, yet it’s technically the Easter holidays and our social life is mainly reduced to WhatsApp, FaceTime, the occasional game on Zoom and other proprietary software that we’re reliant upon.

2) …The dogs seem to be requiring more attention/fuss and how they simultaneously are annoyed we’re at home in the day time.

3) …Even though I have all of this opportunity to write, I’m resisting it somehow. I shouldn’t be working (really, though I do have bits to do for school), and things around the house and outside in our garden can be done in stages, yet getting going seems to take ages.

4) …Therefore, as nothing needs to happen immediately or for a specific deadline, there is all of this afore-alluded to pressure and guilt that we heap upon ourselves.

I’ve also realised that, in my attempt to contribute to NWP’s pages, I’ve actually done some writing. It counts, right? When I started, I knew I wanted a list, but I didn’t realise how that list would turn out. Half of my mind was encouraging me to hurry up so I could post this and get some lunch. A significant proportion was thinking about the mess in the garden and that I need to continue relaying the lawn. The rest somehow managed to write all of this, edit it and wonder if it’s good enough. Why do we do this to ourselves? It doesn’t matter where you start, but a start is exactly that. Now, I’m going to make some lunch and sing ‘Do-Re-Me’ a-la Julie Andrews. Now, “Let’s start at the very beginning…”

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

Wellcome Celebrations

The Whodunnit group gathered at Euston’s Wellcome Collection for their regular meeting on Saturday 25th January - where their numbers were swelled by members of other NWP groups, and even some newcomers - to celebrate a decade of the project and to mark the stepping down (but not stepping away!) of one of its co-founders, Simon Wrigley.

Inspired by Raymond Queneau’s Exercises in Style coupled with a focus on voice - and then by the exhibitions at the Wellcome: Play Well, Being Human and Misbehaving Bodies - writing was, as ever, varied and distinctive. From Stanislavsky to snails, buckets to bathrooms, cancer to Argos catalogues, writers shared their efforts to say the unsayable. 

Perhaps the dynamic of writing in a space like the Wellcome Collection comes from the disruption afforded by the tension inherent in art and in good museum curation. A disruption that provokes interesting writing.

We raised the roof of the Wellcome’s reading room with diverse voices telling diverse stories on diverse subjects. They were by turns funny, frivolous, far-seeing and philosophical.

The occasion was all that the NWP embodies. It was about using writing as a way of understanding, to explore and to be playful, to permit and to be permissive.

Jeni Smith, the projects’s other co-founder and Simon Wrigley’s partner in crime (this was the Whodunnit group, after all) spoke movingly about Simon’s immeasurable work in setting up and sustaining the NWP: the thousands of miles traversed and thousands of pounds spent in setting up groups up and down the country; a determination to succeed borne of suppressed rage and sadness at the straitjackets imposed on writing teachers in the contemporary educational climate.

Simon was presented, fittingly, with a hand-bound book of writing: of poems, personal messages, stories, and anecdotes from NWP members past and present; each uniquely commemorating the love, esteem, appreciation and gratitude felt for the man and his work. 

So we walk away collectively energised to write - for ourselves first and foremost - and for our students; because the more writing we do, the better we get at writing with them.

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.

November 2019: Change is afoot

November 2019 Change is afoot at the National Writing Project.

Alongside our shiny new website - and new and invigorated social media platforms - we have plenty of new faces on board to help Simon Wrigley and Jeni Smith move the project forward into its next phase.

At its core, it remains a network of teachers' writing groups, run by teachers for teachers. It is still a grass-roots, not-for-profit, teacher-owned research project that aims to explore writing and find out further answers to the question, 'What happens when teachers gather together to write and share their writing?' But we have done some further thinking about our principles and values, and about how best to promote them.

The first is that we work together to foster and celebrate the authentic voices of teachers and children across all phases of education. That means that in our ‘galleries’ on the website, for example, we will aim to do more celebration of the work that writing teachers and children do. And by ‘authentic’ we mean real writing - writing that diverges from formulaic structures and ‘Lego linguistics’ and encourages genuine independent voices to emerge in the classroom and beyond.

It is taking us a little while to transfer everything over from the old website, but you can still see favourite resources there at https://thenationalwritingproject.weebly.com/ , so fear not, nothing is lost - but please bear with us as we transfer everything over. Meanwhile, happy writing.

October: Sweet Memories

Writing from our own experience is very often a good way to start, and the mixed pleasures of sweets at Hallowe’en and Bonfire Night are a rich vein to tap.

Start with words. List all the names of sweets that you can think of. Refreshers, jelly snakes, Dime bars, gobstoppers…

Read round. One word from each person in turn. Keep going until everyone is out of words. Encourage repetitions. Advise people not to worry if someone has already said something they have on their list, after all, surely you can never have too many sherbet lemons!

Spend a bit of time sharing thoughts and memories about sweets. Remember, perhaps, Roald Dahl’s description of the sweetshop in Boy. Or here is Nigel Slater on ‘The Ritual of the KitKat’. Read the instructions –there is bound to be controversy. And he doesn’t even start on the whole business of eating –nibble the chocolate or bite straight in?

The lost ritual of KitKat-eating: the indescribably enjoyable art tat used to be involved in eating a bar if KitKat before some unimaginative clot decided to repackage it.

Slide the bar from its open-sided wrapper without tearing the wrapper. Do not puncture he gossamer-thin foil. Gently rub your finger over each finger of chocolate to reveal the word ‘KitKat’. Slide your thumbnail down the first of the valleys in between the chocolate fingers, this tearing the foil. (It is important to tear the foil in a straight line, and to keep the edges of the tear as smooth as possible.) Eat, finger by finger, breaking off a new one as you go, rather than all at once.

It must be said that there were some who liked to unwrap their KitKat without cutting the foil Those who did, inevitably also smoothed the foil out afterwards, so that it was completely flat and smooth. They then rolled it up into a tiny ball. Because of its inherent thinness, KitKat foil made a smaller ball than any other chocolate bar.

From Eating for England The Delights and Eccentricities of the British at Table. Nigel Slater.

Launch into a longer piece of writing. The prompt, really, is the list of sweets and the talk surrounding them. It is a memory of sweets, the buying and the eating of them, the feel and look of them. Whatever comes to you.

Enjoy the stories and memories. More will arise as you read and listen.