Writing From At Work

Last year one of my students was in year 8. He was a year 8 boy. A year 8 boy who likes sports. And who doesn't like reading.

It was a bit of a problem. I found it really hard to relate to this kid and really hard to talk to him, but worst of all was the fact that I didn't really know what to teach him. In general I was working on getting him to read more and improving his levels of comprehension, and working on introducing him to critical analysis of texts where I could. But really, basic essay structure was a little bit tough for him, based on the level he was at and the level of work he was doing in class. I really struggled to find things to teach him and things to say to him.

So what I did is this: I designed writing activities for him. Sometimes they were simple creative writing tasks, sometimes the task was to produce a piece of writing in a specific genre, sometimes there was more of a comprehension element.

During our 1-hour-per-week sessions, I would talk to him about his week and what he'd been reading and doing in class. And then I'd outline the writing task that I'd designed, and set him to it. I usually got him to spend at least 15 minutes writing. Sometimes 20, sometimes 5, but more often than not he wrote for 15 minutes. Which meant, of course, that for 15 minutes I had absolutely nothing to do.

I mean, it would have been kinda rude to pick up a book and chill out while he wrote. So what I started doing, while he was writing, was joining in with the writing activities. Sometimes I wrote on different things but usually I did the activities.

And now, you guys get to read the product of these sessions. On a couple of occasions I branched out and wrote different stuff and on a couple of times the activity actually did involve some analysis, so there are a couple of pieces I wrote that are less fiction and more academic. I'm going to include those in this post, but I'll put them at the end because they're less interesting than the other activities.

Detailed Writing Activity

Joe stretched his arms up and heard his spine go click click click. He must have been sitting down for way too long! He stood up from his black computer chair and dropped his pencil to the wooden desk. The pencil was a HB and it had teeth marks all up the side where Joe had been chewing it. He turned away from his wooden desk. The floor was awash with books and papers, haphazardly stacked in pules and arranged according to a system only Joe could understand. Around the walls there were many tall, wooden bookshelves, with their shelves double-stacked with old books. The whole room smelt dusty. Joe’s bare feet made no sound on the carpeted study floor, but the legs of his jeans swished as they brushed together while he walked. He went out of the study, down the green-painted hall and came out into the silver-and-marble kitchen. His footsteps on the wooden floorboards sounded very loud in the empty house. The kitchen was open plan with a long glass dining table right in the middle of the room. Joe walked straight past it, striding purposefully into the kitchen. In the far right corner, on the black marble bench-top, was a silver kettle. Joe picked it up from its heating element and sloshed it around. It was practically empty.

 “Must have forgotten to fill it last time,” he mumbled, even though there was no one there to hear him say it. He carried the kettle to the sink.

Poems

SAD

Down, unhappy, hurt, depressed,

All because I wasn’t my best.

COLD

Icy, chilly, cool, freezing.

It’s colder than I expect for spring.

FELINE

Tiger, panther, lion, cat.

They all look silly wearing a hat.

GREAT

Excellent, good, brilliant and fine,

I want all the glory to be mine.

THINGS THAT HAPPENS IN THE MORNING

Wake up,

Get my cup.

Brew the tea,

Spread my toast with honey.

Then to eat

(Can’t put up my feet)

Quickly get dressed

Brush my teeth and the rest

Did I grab my book?

Time to have a quick look.

Got all my things,

Hope the phone doesn’t ring!

Rush out to the car

Drive really far

The crowds I will beat

To get a good seat

But the lecture’s so boring

Mustn’t start snoring!

It’s always the same

Every morning.

This is a concrete poem about rats. Sorry about the scan quality!!

Analysis of Macbeth’s monologue from Act V Scene 5 of Macbeth

“SEYTON

The queen, my lord, is dead.

MACBETH

She should have died hereafter;

There would have been a time for such a word.

To-morrow, and to-morrow, and to-morrow,

Creeps in this petty pace from day to day

To the last syllable of recorded time,

And all our yesterdays have lighted fools

The way to dusty death. Out, out, brief candle!

Life's but a walking shadow, a poor player

That struts and frets his hour upon the stage

And then is heard no more: it is a tale

Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury,

Signifying nothing.”

Macbeth delivers this monologue to his servant, Seyton, after being informed that Lady Macbeth has died, when Seyton says, “the Queen, my lord, is dead.” Macbeth then presents an analogy in his monologue, describing life as meaningless through repetition and a number of metaphors. The monologue culminates in Macbeth’s conclusion that life is “full of sound and fury [and signifies] nothing.”

His journey to this conclusion begins when he says “there would have been a time for such a word.” Saying, “there would have been a time,” implies that there is not time now. This is foreshadowing a point Macbeth reiterates later in the monologue: that life is brief, as well as being meaningless.

Analytical Paragraph about "The Clockwork Wizard"

(Yep, that's the story I wrote for a creative writing unit haha!)

The short story “The Clockwork Wizard” (2010) uses allegory in order to present its idea. This idea is that divorce can harm a family. The allegory is established in the second scene of the story, when the protagonist, ten-year-old Mary, is playing with her toys. By play-acting a voice for her favourite toy, Wizard, Mary constructs the allegory: Wizard is her “family.” Evil Sorcerer takes on the role of “Divorce Monster” who is “coming to get” Wizard - just like divorce threatens Mary’s family in reality. After establishing the allegory, Mary’s story continues in parallel with the allegorical story, in which the toys come to life and act out the roles defined by their names.This story culminates in a battle between Wizard and Evil Sorcerer. This is matched with the moment in Mary’s story when she learns that her parents’ divorce is inevitable and that she can’t “make them stay together.” With a “bolt of lightning” Evil Sorcerer kills Wizard. While the reality is that Wizard has something “broke[n] inside him,” his allegorical death suggests that Mary’s family is now dead or broken as well, due to divorce. Thus, through the construction of an allegory in which the character representing divorce murders the character representing Mary’s family, “The Clockwork Wizard” presents the idea that divorce can be extremely harmful to families - to the point that it might even kill them!

Hope you enjoyed!!

Comments plz?

♥Nancy♬