Teacher as writer: the process of an out of school collaboration in narrative writing

ABSTRACT

This paper reports on an out of school creative writing collaboration between a grandmother (the author) and her then eleven-year-old granddaughter, and suggests ways in which this may be relevant to writing in school. The narrative is framed and analysed in the light of Donald Graves’ concepts of process writing. The paper highlights the challenges and opportunities of the collaborative process of writing a novel and what the author learned about herself and her granddaughter as writers. The collaboration highlights the value of teachers being writers and sharing their writing with students. The final section reflects on some of the possibilities of collaborative writing in the classroom.

KEYWORDS:

• Collaboration
• process writing
• out of school learning
• ownership
• playful exploration

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Gloria Latham

Gloria Latham is an Honorary Senior Lecturer at the University of Sydney. She has taught Literacy and Drama for over 30 years as a primary teacher, a Theatre-in-Education Director and a lecturer in teacher  education at RMIT University in Melbourne, Australia. She is currently writing the 3rd edition of Learning to teach: New times, new practices for Oxford University Press.