Creative Writing : "Unseen Bloom: A Tale of Solitude and Solidarity"

 

Samantha rose early on her inaugural day at school, her heart racing with a mix of anticipation and trepidation. As she donned her clothes and packed her bag, she couldn't help but feel a sense of desolation that had been gnawing at her for months.

Growing up in a broken home, Samantha had become accustomed to a life of emotional deprivation. Her parents' ceaseless bickering had created an atmosphere of hostility and neglect, leaving her feeling like an outsider in her own home. With no siblings or extended family to turn to, she often found solace in the company of her books, conjuring up a world that was far removed from her own.

As she made her way to school that morning, Samantha couldn't help but feel like a fish out of water. Her clothes were nondescript, and her backpack was worn and frayed at the edges. She longed to join the groups of girls who were chattering and laughing, but she was paralyzed by fear of rejection.

Desperately lonely, Samantha retreated to a secluded corner of the playground, perching on a bench and watching the other children at play. Her heart ached with a sense of alienation, and she wished fervently for a friend to share her misery with.

Just when Samantha had given up all hope, the bell rang, and she dragged herself to her classroom. As she shuffled through the door, her favourite teacher, Ms. Ahana, was standing at the front of the room, beaming with a smile that could light up a room.

"Greetings young ladies!" Ms. Ahana exclaimed. "I trust you're all brimming with excitement on this momentous day. And Samantha, my darling, it's such a joy to see you! How are you feeling today?"

Samantha was taken aback by her teacher's warmth and sincerity, and she felt a glimmer of hope ignite in her heart. With a hint of a smile playing on her lips, she replied, "I'm holding up alright, thank you."

From that instant on, Samantha knew that she had found a confidant in Ms. Ahana. She immersed herself in her studies, contributing eagerly to class discussions and relishing the opportunity to learn from a teacher who believed in her abilities. Though the other girls continued to give her the cold shoulder, Samantha no longer felt isolated or alone. She had Ms. Ahana in her corner, and that was all she needed to navigate the rough waters of adolescence.

Laughs by the River

Beneath the embrace of Mother nature, we found our oasis for Aidilfitri at Pn.Aida's quaint farmhouse. The Senior Assistant indeed played hostess par excellence, her warm hospitality embodying the very spirit of this joyous festival. Picture this if you will: a charming farmhouse, nestled on the banks of a serene river, ensconced amidst a flourishing tableau of verdant flora.

Every moment dripped with sweet serenity, like a languid river floating lazily by the emerald greens. What an unparalleled backdrop to an afternoon that unfolded like a symphony of merry sounds! The chortles and chuckles, the light-hearted jests exchanged, the rib-tickling anecdotes - the air was positively saturated with mirth and cheer. One look at the clock, and lo and behold, two glorious hours had slipped away, lost in the mazes of delightful conversation and hearty laughter!

And the pièce de résistance: the delectable spread laid out by Pn.Aida. Oh, the gastronomical delight! The food was nothing short of ambrosia. We were pampered, spoilt, and showered with love, evident in every bite we relished.

The day, unforgettable and precious, was undoubtedly worth every moment invested. But now, as twilight peeks from behind the curtains, it's time for this chatterbox to don the hat of a wordsmith. Scribbling away into the dusk, a guilt-free Saturday awaits. 

Online Tools to Develop Writing Skills

The mid-year school holidays have come to an end and the next semester will be a stressful one as SPM and PT3 examinations are just around the corner. I believe teachers and students will be bogged down with preparatory activities geared towards the public examinations. 

If you are one of those not – so – lucky students taking the public examinations this year, you’re are right in the thick of it and I believe you will have essays to write. And let's accept the fact that writing is not everyone’s cup of tea and I have also had students who struggled to build sentences. If you struggle to write essays or if you abhor writing lessons, then writing essays can lead to frustration and stress.

Fortunately, there are ample tools and resources available online. They are also free (for basic use). I have listed the 10 most useful online tools that I have introduced to my students and they are my favourites too. Some of the tools may need you to become a premier member, but I don’t think that will be necessary as the basic use of the tools is good enough to help you write better. So don’t worry about making mistakes, use these tools to improve your essays and score well in PT3 and SPM. 

The online tools below have very similar functions. Therefore, I am not going to review them one by one. Just click on the links below and it will direct you to the websites. 

All you have to do is type your essay in the text box and get it checked for grammatical errors. You may try different websites and get your essays corrected.

I believe this is an easy way for students to learn to correct their mistakes and write better as well as grammatically correct essays!

So good luck and happy writing... 

Polish My Writing

Virtual Writing Tutor

Paper Rater

Grammar Checker   

Scribens  

Online Text Correction

Spelling and Grammar Checker 

Grammarix

Grammarly

Slick Write

Directed Writing : Informal Letter

Informal letter has not been tested in SPM for quite sometime. I think students need to get prepared from all aspects rather than spotting questions ( I have never spotted questions). Here I would like to share a sample.I hope this will be helpful to those who are preparing for SPM English this year. 

The Format 

Students are to write an informal letter, describing their holidays. This piece of work requires students to use descriptive words. It would be easier for students if they are exposed to some examples of descriptive words before they are given the writing task. 

A brief introduction will do 

The first content point is elaborated with precise descriptions

It is always important to have some background knowledge on the topic that you are working on. Students who have better knowledge of the topic will have more things to write. Therefore, it is important for students to read more to develop their knowledge on different things. 

You do not need to use proverbs and idioms in your essays if they are irrelevant. Proper elaboration with good structure and choice of words are the most important. I have noticed, some students are too obsessed with idioms and proverbs that they use them for the sake of using them without even knowing the meaning. 

Also remember to 'call a spade a spade'...

That is all for now,....

Happy writing!

Peer Correction Activity for Writing Lesson

Writing lessons can be thought - provoking when teachers involve peer correction activity. This activity is a way to help students to correct themselves and their friends. It is simply an evident that students will be much aware of their mistakes and correct themselves when peers correct their mistakes. It is greatly effective with low - proficiency learners. I believe the activity would be a festal in classroom when done in groups as no individuals get insulted for making mistakes. Any mistake made is from the entire group. The activity would be more conducive if students of the same proficiency level are put in the same group as they work within their level. Here are the steps for an effective peer correction activity :

Material

The task

The teacher should ensure the task is right for the students. For this task I chose an intermediate writing task where the students have to elaborate 12 content points for directed writing.


Step 1 

Students are working in their small group

Group the students in small groups. Preferably 3 to 4 in a group would be ideal. it would be better if students of the same proficiency level are put in one group as it would help them to work within their level and when the weak ones are grouped together they will struggle to construct sentences. Let them struggle as that is how they learn. If they are assigned with others most likely they will be left out. 

Step 2

Assign each group one content point from the task given and ask each group to write an elaboration for the assigned content point in about 30 to 40 words on a piece of mahjong paper/mini whiteboard. Do not allow them to refer to any materials. The idea should be solely based on their discussion. Give them about 15 to 20 minutes to complete their paragraphs. Once the task is complete,  students should display their work for other students to read. The teacher should prepare an empty space below each completed task for the peers correct. 

Step 3 

Students discussing their peers' work

Once all the groups have put up their work, students from other groups will walk around from one group to another to do the correction. Be aware that some students might correct the right thing, don't say anything until the entire correction process is done and do not let the groups that are being corrected to retaliate. Also please remind the students that they should not correct their own group and also remind them that they should not correct the corrections. 

At the end of the correction process you will find that some errors are corrected 'correctly' and some errors are not.  Remember, this is a process and students learn from their mistakes. This is one way to help them to correct themselves from the  frequent errors they make in composition writing.    

@lousyteachersaidthebulldog

Creative Writing Workshop During Holidays

I conducted a two - day workshop for  form five students during the holidays. I thought nobody would turn up for a workshop during holidays but could not believe that almost all the students who were hand - picked to attend the workshop turned up and it was almost a full house. The commitment from the students  lifted my spirit and I was more than enthusiastic throughout the two days. 

Discussion of task 

I decided to have a creative writing workshop this year as in the past I did not have much time to guide students to develop ideas and creative expressions during formal lessons and most of the time I only shared with my own students and did not have the opportunity to share with students from other classes. Therefore I decided to have this workshop during holidays so that I could work with all the students. 

The objective of the workshop was to help learners to develop ideas and techniques to write creatively. The workshop started with word level activities where students were taught how to use adjectives creatively to make their composition interesting and then it was followed by creative sentence construction. 

The final slot was paragraph writing. It was time for students to let their creative juices flow without any limitations. At the end of the day they shared their ideas with other students. Pondering from the workshop, I could see that many of them have got the talent in them and if guided to the right path they would turn up to be better writers one day. 

Sample of powerpoint presentation 

I hope through the workshop the students have learnt some new ideas and techniques for essay writing that would help them to obtain a better grade in their SPM examination. 

For those who are interested on the materials used for the workshop. Please click here to download them. Sharing is caring. However, I do not provide answers as I don't believe in spoon feeding.  

Teaching creative writing....

According to Tompkins(1982), there are several reasons why teachers should do creative writing. One of the reasons is to make lessons to be more entertaining as well as to foster artistic expression among learners. Creative writing can also be taught to explore the functions and values of writing. Besides, creative writing promotes higher order thinking skills as well as stimulate imagination. On the other hand, it will make writing lessons interestingly alive. 

Teaching creative writing gives opportunities for learners to learn to write from a different perspective rather than a fixed and rigid style of writing proposed by most mainstream SPM writing references in the market. Creative writing can be an avenue for learners to search for their identity in written forms besides acquiring a vast amount of vocabulary if they are guided towards the right direction. 

Honestly, I am not a fan of the reference books sold at bookstores, which only provide samples after samples for students to memorize without actually giving them the guidance to improve their writing skills. As a teacher, I find 'the' guidance in the creative writing references which I searched extensively online (unfortunately we can't find many books on creative writing in Malaysia and most of the time it is only available online and guess what they are free) and more than often my classroom materials and ideas are adapted from these references. 

with the aforementioned compelling reasons, we can't just ignore creative writing as a part of teaching and learning at secondary level. As a teacher, I would like to make a difference in my lessons and one of the many differences that I have made is teaching creative writing. It may look difficult at first glance but without trying we may not even know the wonders that learners can do. Therefore, it is always important to give it a try. The materials given below may help teachers to create their own teaching materials to teach creative writing. 

blue sky thinking 
blue sky thinking answer guide
British Council Teaching Creative Writing 
The Routledge Creative Writing Book 
Creative Writing for Dummies 
Guidelines to Teach Creative Writing 
Creative Writing Tasks 
Lesson Plans to Teach Poetry 
Lesson Plans to Teach Poetry 2
Story Craft
Writing Creative Non - Fiction  

Endnotes

Excerpted from : Essex, C. (1997). Teaching Creative Writing in the Elementary School. ERIC Digest. ERIC Clearinghouse on Reading, English and Communication.

Creative Writing Lesson 1

At the moment, I am reading my creative writing teaching manual whilst doing my dissertation and completing assignments at Clemson University. I have always had problems with my students especially the good one and on questions that I always have in my mind is " What will lift my students’ writing to a higher level? 

Of course, there is not one single thing that will suddenly improve a student’s writing. All too often their writing is too literal. Or, it is too clichéd. But, over the years, I have come to the conclusion that students rarely use metaphors in their writing. Yes, personification is used with glee and similes are used like antibiotics in the modern world, but metaphors, never and something that I found in my precious creative writing book, glad that I spent my grants on books like this and will spend more probably my one month salary from Malaysia will be used to salvage all the books that I can't find in Malaysia....mom is gonna go crazy as I already have house full of books...yeaaa. 

We, Do we English teachers explore metaphors???, I do explore the use of metaphors in everything under the sun, but rarely, if I am honest, do we get students to write metaphors. This is what I am going to share with you people, I haven't tried it out, why don't you try it out with your good and mediocre students and see what is the outcome,, any outcome good or bad please share with me... I will be glad to know....

This is how it should go....

give them this piece of work; 

Welcome to the dawn of a new beginning, an epoch of enlightenment and a feast of wonders. Sit yourself on the manacles of education and unlock your survival kits and release its secrets. First, open your libraries of wonder. Find a desert of emptiness that is ready for new delights. Open your grenades of ink and spread some shrapnel of damage. Across the fog of blankness, draw a road. On the motorway write the wrinkles of time on it. 

ask the students to identify the things which are being described : 

Then, explore and discuss each of the metaphors and their meanings , also discuss the purpose of the metaphor.

Metaphors are used to….

A - Add a new layer of meaning

B - Create a particular atmosphere

C - Provide a point of comparison

D – Make the writing seem poetic / crafted

We have to remind our students that we can’t keep a reader engaged when every other word is a metaphor, this is important as students in Malaysia tend to overuse something new that they learn and when everything goes wrong the teachers will be blamed, so be clear with them. However, when there are a few in a paragraph, the writing is more engaging. 

Finally, you can get students to write a paragraph about a photograph of a beach. Here are just a few examples :

• A fisherman’s tears – waves 
• Neptune’s minions – fish 
• Medusa’s hair – seaweed 
• Ink stains – rocks in the sea 

As a start we can ask our students to just write simple sentences using metaphors, remember this is a step by step process, we can't aspect them to give us the 'wow' metaphors in just one night. 

Then the next lesson we can start with getting students to fill the blanks with writing metaphors.

A book is ……

• A window to another world. 
• A drug for the imagination. 
• Therapy for the educated. 

This leads me to think about metaphors and non-fiction. Maybe I should be getting students to work on metaphors for the narrative writing in the SPM English exams. Every so often I could have a metaphor starter, focusing on the generation of metaphors. 

Happy Teaching peeps!!

Workshop on Teaching of Creative Writing

It has been a hell of a year since the beginning that I barely have time to update this blog. What am I busy with??? Countless things that I can't mention here as all of it are deemed 'confidential'. Finally I am taking sometime to sit and update on one of the many things that I did recently.

I was invited to give a talk on teaching of creative writing to a group of TESOL students in USM. It was a very exciting workshop as I got to meet many young, vibrant and energetic future academicians who do not have any worries on how their lives as teachers going to be like in the future. I have to thank Dr. Tan Eng Kok for inviting me to give this talk,  as she was very much impressed with my presentation during the MICELT 2013 conference. She complimented me till I blushed. 

The workshop was held in the Main Campus in USM, Penang. The students were very attentive throughout the workshop and participated actively in all the activities that I have prepared for them. I introduced myself and gave them some reflections on my teaching career which had begun 11 years ago. I shared my teaching materials and ideas with them and gave them tips on the do's and don'ts. I hope that my workshop has given them some insights and challenges in the teaching profession which they may  have not known. I hope through my workshop they have got some ideas that will be useful during their practicum which will be helpful.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you.