Snapshots - glimpses into 5 teachers' 'writing histories'
Here are other examples from other teachers at a LATE writing workshop in 2009 led by Jeni and Simon. The writer's age appears on the left hand side.
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8 Writing dog adventure stories for my granddad, who was dying in hospital. I pretended they were from a TV show, but they were mine.
14 Writing Catherine Cookson style stories when I was 14, inspired by visits to the mobile library.
19 Having an essay pulled apart at University by a new tutor, who then praised my higgledy-piggledy rhapsodic tosh! Saved.
33 Writing and performing a poem for my husband on our wedding day.
35 Writing my MA – experimenting with ways to produce enough words to turn the computer off with a clear conscience.
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11 I wrote a diary from the age of 11 to age 17
20s I wrote jokes with professional comedians in my 20s
I wrote a poem about my grandfather’s sense of ‘ENOUGH’
I wrote my own educational history two years ago
I wrote an academic essay in the form of a play last year
I am writing a dissertation for my doctorate on the tensions between English teachers and state prescription
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Early primary school. An elderly, grandmotherly teacher is telling me how wonderful it is that I have written of my ambition to be a fireman
18 I am eighteen and I have written my first love poem about ‘my butterfly love’
21 I am twenty-one and struggling to remember the words about Coleridge that will form the sentences in the paragraphs of my finals exam essays that will lead to an unknown future
It’s 1991 and I am drafting a letter that will go to 4,000 secondary schools announcing a potential SATs boycott. This letter will define me for years to come.
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10 Expressing anger in a poem and forgetting my anger while becoming involved with language
14 Copying a grown-up author’s writing style and feeling successful and surprised
27 Catharsis of writing detailed complaint to landlord
33 Re-discovering my own desire to write and fears/anxieties – LATE Feb 2009
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8 Writing dog adventure stories for my granddad, who was dying in hospital. I pretended they were from a TV show, but they were mine.
14 Writing Catherine Cookson style stories when I was 14, inspired by visits to the mobile library.
19 Having an essay pulled apart at University by a new tutor, who then praised my higgledy-piggledy rhapsodic tosh! Saved.
33 Writing and performing a poem for my husband on our wedding day.
35 Writing my MA – experimenting with ways to produce enough words to turn the computer off with a clear conscience.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
11 I wrote a diary from the age of 11 to age 17
20s I wrote jokes with professional comedians in my 20s
I wrote a poem about my grandfather’s sense of ‘ENOUGH’
I wrote my own educational history two years ago
I wrote an academic essay in the form of a play last year
I am writing a dissertation for my doctorate on the tensions between English teachers and state prescription
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Early primary school. An elderly, grandmotherly teacher is telling me how wonderful it is that I have written of my ambition to be a fireman
18 I am eighteen and I have written my first love poem about ‘my butterfly love’
21 I am twenty-one and struggling to remember the words about Coleridge that will form the sentences in the paragraphs of my finals exam essays that will lead to an unknown future
It’s 1991 and I am drafting a letter that will go to 4,000 secondary schools announcing a potential SATs boycott. This letter will define me for years to come.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
10 Expressing anger in a poem and forgetting my anger while becoming involved with language
14 Copying a grown-up author’s writing style and feeling successful and surprised
27 Catharsis of writing detailed complaint to landlord
33 Re-discovering my own desire to write and fears/anxieties – LATE Feb 2009
