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The Experience of Writing

By Polly M. Jeremiah for weekending 31st October, 2025

 

There is no better way of fully understanding any process, that to be totally immersed in it yourself. This week with no prior notice, we were thrown into an impromptu writing situation, where we had to do a piece (topic given) within a forty minute period, with very little opportunity to prepare. Now, this is what our students experience in our writing class, where they are seldom given the opportunity to choose a topic of personal preference. In that moment I realized how difficult it was to produce my best writing.

 

My personal experience helped come to the conclusion, that many of my practices needed thorough analysis and revision. In that instance, I saw how much my students were disenfranchised, by not being given a fair and comfortable opportunity to showcase their true potential in writing. I came to the realization that my students were tortures, thereby destroying their interest in writing.

 

After last week’s personal writing experience, I came to the following conclusion:                                                    

That students should be given ample notice, before any writing activity.

That students should be given the autonomy to choose their own topic.

The writing teacher should seek feedback on student’s feelings about the process, while allowing students to express themselves freely.

 

Then came our opportunity to experience assessing a student in his natural school environment. That experience was one like none other. I observed things, which I had never noticed before. I saw the child’s process and work, in a different light. Though more analytical, I had a more positive attitude to the child’s work, seeing more value in it while being less critical and having more of an improvement view.

 

Indeed, this was a week of realization and reflection on by past practice. I must make the pronouncement, that at this stage I feel as a real writing teacher.

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