Being a Writer

So I read back over my last three posts and came to the realisation that I can't write any more :/

I used to be a fairly decent writer, and I put that down entirely to my Master of Communication degree. An entire course was dedicated to editing, and every other course obviously had a large focus on writing ability (at least the courses I did, some other focused on speaking skills etc). I wrote blog posts (see my old blog), articles (one was even published in Scientrific, the CSIRO children's magazine), endless literature reviews, etc. I was writing almost every single day, and publishing/handing in written work at least three times a week. All of the constant writing and criticism (self and otherwise) really did hone my writing skills. Of course, after a five year break, my skills have become quite rusty.

Working as a teacher, there's not a whole lot of actual writing that I do. Comments on student work usually takes the form of extremely short sentences, circling and arrows; lesson plans are dot points; PowerPoint presentations are often written in simpler language to make it easier to digest. If the students are expected to read a text, it is almost never one I have written myself (and yes, sometimes I get annoyed at how poorly the text was written). And yet, I find myself frustrated at the lack of writing ability of my students. Many of my seniors cannot form a proper paragraph; many of the juniors struggle with simple sentences. It took me a fair while during my first year to get used to the fact that these students haven't really been taught to write well. It took me even longer to realise that letting their lack of skill slide benefits no one, even if it does shorten the marking time by a factor of 10. How can my students possibly learn to write well if I never model it for them? If I never spend time showing them how to improve? If I constantly simplify texts to make them easier to read or more enjoyable? (Insert rant about over-crowded curriculum and the absolute lack of time available to dedicate to such a thing)

So I guess I will take this blog as an avenue to redevelop my own writing skills. I will try and remember how I was taught to write well, and figure out a way to incorporate that in to my teaching. If I figure something out, I will share it here in the hopes that it will be useful to other teachers, or parents, out there who would like their students to write better.

And I guess I broke one of the first rules of writing - have a purpose. This post doesn't really have a purpose, it's more just me sorting through my thoughts, I hope you don't mind!