First Technical Fault

Apologies to Kate for labeling this post with this title, but it had to be said!

We added some musical madness to our First Story class today, with Kate drawing inspiration from Leonard Cohen's Famous Blue Raincoat:

Once we were actually able to play the song, the group discussed the difference between writing lyrics and writing poems, though none of the First Story students present considered themselves lyricists. We looked at the rhyme in particular, which Kate openly abhors usually, but we agreed was acceptable in song lyrics. Why is this?

The song is written in the form of a letter, full of mystery about who is being addressed and who is being spoken to. But within the lines are tiny, unique details, strangely specific in a song so vague. Like the famous blue raincoat of the title, these details leave us asking questions, as demonstrated by numerous online discussions about what Leonard Cohen was trying to say.

Drawing on Cohen's style, we wrote our own letters, focusing on a small number of solid images, like names of streets and people. We were given the opportunity to write about something personal or create a dramatic monologue about a fictional scenario.

I went for the fictional option, and, as I so often find when I initially struggle with a piece of writing, the words soon took over and a story developed. What began as a love letter between a recently separated couple turned into a macabre tale about obsessive love, with a stalker writing to his victim.

Our First Story students, again proving themselves to be pure genius, wrote amazing pieces of prose and poetry, some imagined and some semi-autobiographical. As a whole, our group tend towards the darker side of writing, often exploring love or loss or even hope through cynical eyes. And yet, we have much to celebrate amongst our cohort of young writers, as demonstrated by their ability to get right back into the flow of creativity today.

The First Performance Poetry Day

Words cannot describe how elated I feel after the events of today. 

Six months ago, I was watching Jools Holland with my sister when George the Poet graced the screen and my sister and I stopped everything to watch this (note: my sister rarely stops talking, so I knew this was a special moment). I thought he would be an ideal role model for our students: young, intelligent and passionate, with incredible skill in writing and performing poetry.

Today, Oxford Spires hosted the inaugural Performance Poetry Day. We already have some confident and competent performers in school, from alumna Azfa Ali to current First Story students. But today, we targeted the kids who don't usually come into contact with our creative writing activities, offering them an opportunity to work with inspiring and talented young spoken word poets. 

We set up two parallel workshops: one for a select group of twelve boys to work with George and another for twelve girls to work with Azfa. In Azfa's group, she got the students to think about rhythm using playground clapping games, whilst the boys who worked with George impressed us by turning up full of ideas about which they might want to talk and write.

George's enthusiasm for change and hope was infectious. The students instantly respected him and wanted to share with and impress him. He talked about the state of contemporary society and the problems he saw with the current political system and the struggles he anticipated his teenage audience are likely to soon face. The students engaged immediately, talking about misogyny, poverty and racism. In a short space of time, they worked together to create poems about these issues and more, drawing on their own experiences. 

At the end of the day, we crammed as many students as possible into our new Theatre to show off the hard work of the selected workshop students. Those who wanted to perform had the opportunity to stand up in front of their peers and demonstrate their new-found talents. Azfa and George also performed some of their poems, and the students showed their appreciation through applause, sometimes interrupting the performances with clapping and cheering.

I am so proud of the students who were involved with the events today. Kate and I are buzzing, because we have managed to reach a large number of students who previously had little knowledge of the great creative writing activities that take place in our school. Across OSA, everyone is talking about poetry. At last! Our plan now is to create a performance poetry club to take these skills and talents even further!

With thanks to all my colleagues for their help in running Performance Poetry Day; and many, many thanks to the people at the John Betjeman Poetry Competition for Young People for their support and sponsorship for this event.

First Trip*

*I should clarify: this is about the first trip since I officially started this blog. (Also, I have to stick with the 'Firsts' of the blog titles, which is proving to be a challenge). I have been on many First Story trips in the past, from residentials in Somerset and Shropshire to the First Story Festival at Lady Margaret Hall in Oxford.

First Story students from Larkmead, Cheney and Oxford Spires Academy gathered together at the Pitt Rivers museum to work with Kate Clanchy, Tim Pears, and Julie Bolitho-Lee. We were separated into three groups, giving the students a chance to work with different young people and different writers. It was a really mixed group, with some fresh little year 7s, some gifted and talented children, and some inclusion students.

Tour guides from the Pitt Rivers showed us around, highlighting specific items in the museum. If you have ever been to the Pitt Rivers, you will know that it is full of acquisitions! There is hardly room to turn around, but this is it's charm. As our tour guide informed us, most museums work on the idea that they have the best of something - the best portraits, the oldest artefacts, the most unique exhibits. But the Pitt Rivers has the most of everything - twenty different boomerangs from loads of different countries, thousands of materials from hundreds of eras. They reckon they have items from all but five nations!

Naturally, we could not see everything there - I have been often and I still see something new each time I visit - so we focused on a few select areas. We looked at items that would have been given as an offering in the hope of medical cures or blessings from the Gods. We debated what might be in some mystical bottles, thought to contain witches. We saw the totem pole that stands tall in the centre of the museum. But best of all, we got to look at some local artefacts: magical potatoes from Cowley, believed to ward off rheumatism, and mandrake root from Headington, which would have been used in love potions.

Then it was time to write. As a starter, Kate got us to write word photos, which are short poems designed to capture a specific moment or item. We thought about things we had seen in the museum, and had to select just three adjectives and keep our poems to about ten words. This was a lovely little task to get us thinking about how language can best be utilised, and it encouraged us to keep things short.

For the main element of the workshop, we talked about our 'demons'. Kate asked us to think about creating a container in which we could trap all our dark memories and bad habits and pet peeves. Students were encouraged to write about whatever came to mind, from their hatred off-brand ketchup to their fears of not fitting in.

When we all gathered together again, every group had something to show off about. Students in the other groups wrote list poetry or flash fiction, starting with the phrase: "The night I was locked in the museum..." It was interesting that a lot of the students used the totem pole in their writing, highlighting what a significant feature of the Pitt Rivers museum it is.

My students came away from the trip feeling freshly inspired and with new techniques for creative writing. I love having the chance to work with students and authors from other schools, sharing in their experience and creative processes. I appreciate that these events are complicated to organise, but First Story should be incredibly proud of all the opportunities they are providing for young people across the country.

First Feedback

Feedback is a big challenge for me – both in terms of giving and receiving. So far, I am terribly in awe of all the work our First Story students produce, meaning that I am pretty much incapable of seeing improvements. When it comes to creative writing (as opposed to academic writing), I am not particularly familiar with the structure and how to propose adjustments. Plus, creative writing is very personal: I would hate to step on Kate’s toes and damage the hard work she does to support the students, so this may be something for which I will need some help and training.

I am also pretty atrocious at taking constructive criticism about my own work (as my long-suffering mother well knows...). But I love being a part of First Story and really want to see some development in my own writing! This year, I have been consistently terrible at submitting work to Kate, mostly because I have been busy but partly because I have been worried about what she will say about it!

Today, we started our First Story session by looking at a piece of anonymous writing (not from any of our students, it should be said!) and critiquing it. We talked about the imagery, the themes and the story (or lack thereof), and discussed what we could do to make it better, which essentially came down to all the students agreeing they would throw it in the bin and write something completely different.

It was a real confidence boost for all the students to acknowledge that they could write something better than this published piece.

So I finally got my act together and emailed her a poem and a short story. The poem was from the session when we had looked at Simon Armitage's poem, and the short story was from the day we had look at Katherine Mansfield's writing (click here if you dare). For both pieces, I recognise that some work needed to be done, so I hope I will not be distressed by anything Kate had to say. I think this recognition came from seeing Kate working with the students and getting a better idea of how their work could be developed, and from knowing that I had not made the same mistakes as we had seen in the starter sample.

The Student Teacher's First Lesson

Today, our wonderful writer-in-residence was whisked away to Buckingham Palace to meet the Queen!

Initially, we were hoping Miss Woolley would lead the lesson, giving our young writers an opportunity to catch up and edit existing work, making developments and alternations and working towards the First Story anthology. But then Miss Woolley was called away on urgent business where she would meet another royal, Prince Charles, so Mr Moyser, our lovely English intern, offered to take the session.

As a student teacher, Mr Moyser presented me with a brilliantly structured and fluent lesson plan before commencing teaching. It noted the lesson aims, resources to be referenced, and differentiation opportunities. It was very detailed, but what impressed me most was his actual teaching - engaging, entertaining and educational.

Mr Moyser presented us with an extract from Zadie Smith's NW, in which she describes a route from A to B in a rather unconventional manner. The first part of the extract looks a little like a Google Maps route, outlining distance and turnings. The second part described the same journey using short snippets of detail, such as the smells, sights and sounds. It was a very unconventional starting point, focusing on sensual settings rather than character or story.

Then, the group were asked to think about a journey they know well, like the route to school. Mr Moyser used the technique of automatic writing, in which the young writers are encouraged to write about whatever comes into their head as the teacher offers prompts, such as "What can you smell?", "If you stuck your hand out right now, what could you touch?". Some students wrote lists, whilst others wrote sentences. After a few minutes of this, Mr Moyser asked us to pause, reflect, and edit, bringing together similar sounds and rhythms, developing our notes into a poem or short piece of prose.

This workshop produced a variety of different styles, which was fascinating to witness. Some students took the task literally, writing something similar to Smith's original but drawing on their own experiences. Others built up their routes, subtly adding in story or character through carefully manufactured hints and implications.

I really enjoyed this workshop - and I think this is partly due to Mr Moyser's beautifully executed and suitably flexible lesson plan. Seeing the direction the lesson was intended to go gave me a different perspective on a writing workshop, and helped me think differently about teaching and learning.

First Writer's Block

At the end of each session, Kate collects up the work of most students for her special typing up service, in which she transforms scribbles and pencil scratchings into poetic masterpieces. Then, when we begin each new session, Kate will present us with the work from last week, so we can look it over and celebrate what has been achieved. It is a lovely way to link all the sessions together, and to get the students to recognise how well they are doing. It also means that the young writers begin each class feeling optimistic and ready to write!

During the week, Kate sent us all a short story and a poem to read, based around the story of Beauty and the Beast. As a group, we then talked about folk stories we knew as a child and dreams and fears these stories evoked. Most of us were preoccupied with Disney-style stories, though it appears one of our female sixth formers always dreamed of being Han Solo.

Thinking about childhood, Kate encouraged us to write, starting with the line, "When I was a child...", inspired by The Beast by Lorraine Mariner. There were giggles from all around the table as people reminisced about their youthful fantasies about handsome princes and comic book superheroes and life as a cat.

I, meanwhile, drew a complete blank. I had had an incredibly long day, running around in my other role as Primary Liaison. So when it came to formulating words in sentences, I failed.

But when I heard the students read back their poems and stories, I felt incredibly inspired. We laughed about shared dreams and common experiences and some superbly random childhood imaginings, and suddenly I started thinking about the task a lot more creatively.

Today, I ran out of time to write anything, but I have this weekend all to myself so will definitely find time to go back to this task.

First Breakthrough

Over this first term, many of the students from First Story have come and approached me to talk about what they are reading or writing. It is incredible how fast they become confident in sharing with you, wanting to know what you think.

Today, I felt like Kate really broke through with some of the new students in our group. We drew from a poem by Simon Armitage called 'It Ain't What You Do, It's What It Does To You'. Kate encouraged us to think about our dreams - where we wanted to go, what we wish we could see and taste - and to contrast them to things we have seen and done - things unique to our families, our homes, our city.

I found myself thinking about all the great places I have visited, including Southeast Asia, Scandinavia, the United States. There is so much more I want to do with my life, but I found myself contrasting these amazing experiences with the more personal things I want to see and do, like seeing my friends get married, seeing my brother continue to mature and having a family of my own.

There is still some work to be done on this, but maybe I will put it online soon.

Meanwhile, the students produced some incredible pieces. Whereas mine had been an optimistic dream of my future, others had contrasted the boredom and discolour of Britain with their fantasies of other countries and cities. Some had compared their dreams of world travel with home comforts, such as food, family and friends. There was one student in particular who we really felt achieved her first piece of great writing today, in which she used incredibly beautiful imagery to describe her love of her family.

When all the students had left, Kate and I shared the excitement of her breakthrough. This is what First Story is all about!

Click here to see my work from this session.