Category Archives: Composing

Advice on writing essay/story/article/speech.

ABCs of Bullying

Posted on March 3, 2014 by | 9 comments

A student of mine, who would prefer to remain anonymous, wrote this wonderful essay on bullying as a follow up to our school’s anti-bullying week and has kindly given me permission to publish it here. I feel it deserves to be read by a wider audience than me…

Letter z

The ABC of Bullying

-Anonymous

In every year group there is a girl just like the letter ‘Z’. Last in the ranking, no support behind her, often forgotten about.  ‘Z’ did not choose this life for herself. It almost just happened automatically, like nature. At the end of the day, if everyone is popular then nobody is popular.

In the beginning, ‘Z’ is her own worst enemy. Last on the list of 26 letters, she often feels lonely and out of the loop. Looking around my year group today, I can pick out quite a few ‘Z’s’. Easy targets. Insecure. Nobodies.

I can only imagine to a bully, they stick out like a sore thumb. A bully, someone deeply insecure in themselves, can easily sniff out other damaged souls of its kind. Do I feel sorry for the bully? The answer is yes, I completely do. I ask myself the question, is a bully a murderer or a mountain lion? Both kill, however one does it out of evil, the other does it to survive. I have always been of the opinion that the bully is the one who needs human help. The one who, similar to the victim, needs support.

“If a man cannot understand the beauty of life, it is probably because life never understood the beauty in him “

– Anonymous

Sometimes it is hard to believe the bully has no support. They come across so superior and confident. But on deeper observation they too are often missing some form of family/friendship back-up. They may belong to a tight group of friends, yet still not feel secure.

‘A’ is confident and popular. Leader of an elite group, the vowels. ‘A, E, I, O& U’ call the shots. If you are not in with them, you probably don’t exist. What proper word doesn’t have a vowel in it? Dominators of the English language, they have the power. ‘A’ knows all the letters in the Alphabet very well. However, she never really bothers with ‘Z’. She finds ‘Z’ to be boring, weird and ugly. “Not even symmetrical!”

‘A’ knows ‘Z’ is unpopular. She knows ‘Z’ holds very few pages in the dictionary. She just excludes her.

In today’s world, this behaviour is rampant. I see it every day. Nobody wants to be seen or associated with someone classed as ‘unpopular’. At this age in school, everything revolves around your social standing. And in an all-girls school, it is very important to have a boyfriend. If you don’t, there must be something wrong with you.

So where is ‘Z’ in all of this? So far we have established ‘Z’ is lonely, unsupported and insecure. Not popular, and with very few pages in the dictionary. Insignificant. The perfect victim.

‘A’ on the other hand, acts the complete opposite way. However, always being the centre of attention, she feels used and abused. She is fed up, but she wears the best disguise. ‘A’ really feels like ‘a’. She is about to snap.

It takes two to tango. ’A’ and ‘Z’ are a match made in heaven. It doesn’t take long for ‘A’ to unleash her pain and anger on ‘Z’. It doesn’t take long for ‘Z’ to let her away with this. And this is where the vicious cycle starts. Neither party really knows what they are doing, neither party knows how to escape.

So where am I in this equation of bullying?

I see myself as the letter ‘M’. Smack bang in the middle. Ordinary. Symmetrical. Safe. Neither a full bully, neither a full victim. Have I done some terribly cruel things to other humans during my short time on this planet? Yes, and I am forever ashamed of them, but haven’t we all at some point in our lives? However, since coming into secondary school, I have grown a lot.  I would like to think I know the difference between right and wrong, but is this enough?

Today, I know I could do a lot more for the ‘Z’s’ of my class. I know they are there yet I don’t do anything to help them. Being honest, I classify myself worse than a bully. Me being the letter ‘M’ means I have support all around. I have the ability to see both sides of the story and make the right decision. I have the ability to help. I have the ability to stop bullying!

“Knowing what is right doesn’t mean much unless you do what’s right”

-Theodore Roosevelt

I have learnt a lot from this year’s anti-bullying week.

Now I know my ‘ABCs’, it’s time for me to start helping all those ‘Z’s’.

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Descriptive Writing Tip 4

Posted on February 1, 2014 by | Comments Off on Descriptive Writing Tip 4

Moment by moment description of events is a key feature of descriptive writing.

So instead of saying

“I walked into the dentist’s office and sat on the chair”

you describe the event so that the reader feels drawn into the experience:

The clink of instruments falling into metal trays and the cloying smell of drills and disinfectant filled me with despair. I was back here again, in the place from all of my nightmares, but this time was real. Now I shimmied onto the cold blue leather and the whirr as the motorised chair came to life added to my rising panic. As it stretched out beneath me, I too opened my jaws until they ached with the effort; tasted the powder of the tight white gloved hand as it pulled at the corner of my mouth; squeezed my eyes shut and dug my fingernails into the soft palm of my trembling hand to distract myself from the pain. Here it comes, here it comes, the prick and the sting and the cold cold kiss of the needle, then the flooding numbness, and the feeling of temporary relief, all too soon destroyed by the searing screech of the drill as it spins hideously closer. Save me, I want to scream, but I’m already almost choking on my own spit, pooling at the back of my mouth. I wiggle my eyebrows at the nurse and she obligingly slips in the suction tube to stop me from drowning. Why is it, I ask myself, as I stare at the ceiling, weary and numb and exhausted, that a visit to the dentist always feels like a brush with death?”

However, if this is part of a longer story, it needs to go somewhere. It needs to have a point. Perhaps it turns into an unexpected love story where the next thing the narrator notices is how lovely the dentist’s eyes are, and how gentle his hands are, and how kind his laughter. Perhaps it turns into an actual brush with death when the dentist notices a growth on her neck, grabs a blade and slices it off. Psychopath alert!!! Perhaps this is a character study and the narrator is attempting to explain how she became addicted to prescription painkillers – maybe it all began with this visit to the dentist.

In storytelling, it doesn’t matter where it’s going but each event that’s included must be leading somewhere, capturing some truth, revealing something previously hidden.

Of course, if you are just writing a descriptive essay, but there is no demand for it to become a short story, then a series of seemingly unrelated word pictures (like this one) with an overarching theme (“Moments I would rather forget“) would work fine. In this case I would recommend a mix of tones – funny, embarrassing, uncomfortable, sad, shocking. Otherwise it might turn into a whinge, which no-body likes!!! (I’m the mum of a smallie, believe me when I say, no-body likes listening to a whinge!).

Writing has a rhythm.

You can write like you’re listening to a lullaby, can allow events to slowly unfold, with a gentle soothing pace and a flow that mirrors a lazy Sunday afternoon. Writing like this often embraces the beauty and the tragedy of the ordinary and can have a philosophical depth that will creep slowly into your heart and leave you pining when the reading is done.

You can write at a canter, clipping along nicely from event to event, not pausing to admire the roses but seeing them briefly as you pass them by on your way to the next big moment in your story.

You can write like a fire-breathing dragon is hot on your heels, speeding from cliffhanger to cliffhanger, transforming your reader into a crazed adrenaline junkie!

Of course there’s nothing wrong with mixing it up! Your writing, like a piece of music, can change pace and tone midstream and multiple times during the piece. But be aware of your pace, not so slow that the reader gets bored, not so fast that the reader hasn’t time to get into the story, to care about the characters and to feel like they buy into the world being described.

 

 

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Descriptive Writing Tip 3

Posted on February 1, 2014 by | Comments Off on Descriptive Writing Tip 3

5 senses =  3 S’s – sight, sound, smell & 2 T’s – taste & touch.

Blind people experience the world as a rich tapestry of sounds, smells, textures and tastes. Just because they are blind does not mean their life is any less intense but they have tuned in to a way of seeing the world that does not need eyes.

This is what you need to do as a writer. If you are describing a place, imagine that you walked into that space blindfolded. Would you still know where you were? How? Close your eyes and imagine the sounds and smells, the taste of the air, the fabrics and gels and the feel of the furniture that would indicate to you where you were even if you could not see…

Here’s an example of descriptive writing which relies on sound, smell, texture & taste.

“The clink of instruments falling into metal trays and the cloying smell of drills and disinfectant filled me with despair. I was back here again, in the place from all of my nightmares, but this time was real. Now I shimmied onto the cold blue leather and the whirr as the motorised chair came to life added to my rising panic. As it stretched out beneath me, I too opened my jaws until they ached with the effort; tasted the powder of the tight white gloved hand as it pulled at the corner of my mouth; squeezed my eyes shut and dug my fingernails into the soft palm of my trembling hand to distract myself from the pain. Here it comes, here it comes, the prick and the sting and the cold cold kiss of the needle, then the flooding numbness, and the feeling of temporary relief, all too soon destroyed by the searing screech of the drill as it spins hideously closer. Save me, I want to scream, but I’m already almost choking on my own spit, pooling at the back of my mouth. I wiggle my eyebrows at the nurse and she obligingly slips in the suction tube to stop me from drowning. Why is it, I ask myself, as I stare at the ceiling, weary and numb and exhausted, that a visit to the dentist always feels like a brush with death?”

Right, not here it is again, but this time colour coded:

sounds = blue    smells = green    taste = pink    touch = orange 

“The clink of instruments falling into metal trays and the cloying smell of drills and disinfectant filled me with despair. I was back here again, in the place from all of my nightmares, but this time was real. Now I shimmied onto the cold blue leather and the whirr as the motorised chair came to life added to my rising panic. As it stretched out beneath me, I too opened my jaws until they ached with the effort; tasted the powder of the tight white gloved hand as it pulled at the corner of my mouth; squeezed my eyes shut and dug my fingernails into the soft palm of my trembling hand to distract myself from the pain. Here it comes, here it comes, the prick and the sting and the cold cold kiss of the needle, then the flooding numbness, and the feeling of temporary relief, all too soon destroyed by the searing screech of the drill as it spins hideously closer. The smell of powdered rubble as my mouth becomes a war zone chokes my nostrils. Save me, I want to scream, but I’m already almost drowning in my own spit, pooling at the back of my mouth. I wiggle my eyebrows at the nurse and she obligingly slips in the suction tube. Why is it, I ask myself, as I stare at the ceiling, weary and numb and exhausted, that a visit to the dentist always feels like a brush with death?”

[***Note: there is some overlap between taste and touch. For example, you taste the cold but it’s also a sensation, so you can touch something and know it’s cold – it doesn’t have to be a taste!]

If I take out the sounds, smells, tastes, and touch sensations, this is what the description becomes:

As I walked in I saw metal trays and instruments, drills and bottles of disinfectant. I was back here again, in the place from all of my nightmares, but this time it was real. I saw the cold blue leather of the motorised chair and my panic began to rise. As it stretched out, I too opened my jaws, saw the tight white gloved hand as it moved towards my mouth; shut my eyes to distract myself from the pain. Here it comes, here it comes, the long needle, then the feeling of temporary relief, all too soon destroyed by the sight the drill as it spins hideously closer. I see powder rising from my open mouth as the drill digs deeper. Save me, I want to scream, but as I glance down I can see spit dribbling out of the corner of my mouth. I open my eyes wide to catch the nurse’s attention and she obligingly slips in the suction tube. Why is it, I ask myself, as I stare at the ceiling, weary and numb and exhausted, that a visit to the dentist always feels like a brush with death?”

There’s nothing wrong with this sight-only description but it doesn’t draw you in as convincingly because the focus is ONLY on what I can see, rather than giving the full five senses experience, which is what most of us are lucky enough to experience on a daily basis.

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Descriptive Writing Tip 2

Posted on January 13, 2014 by | Comments Off on Descriptive Writing Tip 2

Use adjectives.

The reader needs details so that they can picture the number/quantity, size, shape, weight, colour, brightness, texture, condition, sound, smell, taste, speed, temperature, age, distance, time, origin, location, emotion towards or opinion of the thing being described.

Take this sentence: “The car raced through the town”

I’ve got a good verb – “raced” but otherwise I know very little about either of the things being described – the car or the town. If I add a few adjectives, suddenly these nouns come to life!

“The tiny battered Mini raced through the sleepy seaside town”

You’ll notice I changed “car” to “Mini” so you could picture an actual make and model – “car” is a pretty crap noun because it’s a common noun but other than ‘engine, four wheels’, it doesn’t give you a specific picture in your mind.

For a vast list of adjectives, click on this link.

WARNING: Too many adjectives can make your writing worse, particularly when you select over-used adjectives such as big/small, happy/sad, good/bad, fast/slow. Writing which draws attention to itself – or rather which draws loads of attention to itself by being overly flowery – is known as purple prose.

THIS IS NOT A COMPLIMENT.

PURPLE PROSE IS BAD!

You’ll annoy the reader because they’ll feel like you’re showing off and you’ll probably slow the pace of your sentences to a crawl as well.

Here is an example of just enough adjectives to keep the flow of the writing and at the same time offer us a clear picture:

“I could see a blue light flashing in the distance. My head was throbbing and when I lifted my swollen hand to my temple, sticky, wet blood smeared my fingertips. A low moan of pain was just barely audible amid the screaming sirens and the screeching whirr of the chainsaw that was going to cut me out of the train wreckage. It was only later I realised that I was the one moaning. Everyone else was dead”

Here’s an example of purple prose – add in 11 more adjectives (the ones I’ve underlined) and suddenly it goes from descriptive & well-paced to incredibly dragged out and intensely irritating!

“I could see a vivid blue light flashing in the far-off distance. My heavy headachy head was throbbing and when I lifted my swollen sore hand to my aching temple, sticky, wet blood smeared my shaking fingertips. A low moan of intense pain was just barely audible amid the screaming sirens and the screeching whirr of the vicious chainsaw that was going to soon cut me out of the twisted train wreckage. It was only later I realised that I was the one moaning. Everyone else was dead”

Some writers prefer a very minimalist style to keep a fast pace in their writing – something like this:

“I could see a blue light flashing. My head was throbbing. I lifted my swollen hand to my temple and blood smeared my fingertips. A moan of pain was just barely audible amid the sirens and the whirr of the chainsaw that was cutting me out of the train wreckage. It was only later I realised I was the one moaning. Everyone else was dead”

So, you don’t HAVE to include loads of adjectives to write descriptively…

 

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Perfect Paragraph Project

Posted on January 10, 2014 by | Comments Off on Perfect Paragraph Project

Recently I’ve come to the very obvious conclusion that if a student can’t master the art of writing a really good paragraph they’ll never master the art of writing a really good essay.

This is such an obvious statement I’m almost embarrassed to type it publicly.

Anyway, I’ve started the Perfect Paragraph Project with my second and third years in an effort to help them master the art of the perfect paragraph so that they have the tools necessary to write a perfect essay.

Below are the advice and the example I’ve used to help them.

Paragraph = sandwich

Topic sentence = introduce the idea you’ll discuss in this paragraph – this idea must be directly responding to the Q

Body sentences = 6-8 which go into more detail, using relevant quotes & examples to prove your point(s)t & offer your opinion(s).

Final paragraph sentence = connect what you’ve just said back to the question that was asked (but don’t repeat yourself. Think of this sentence as the sentence which shows what you have learnt / what you now understand).

Once we had established the basic rules for writing a perfect paragraph, I asked them to select a question – whatever one they wanted from their Christmas test – and I there and then created the paragraph below, talking through my thought process as I typed.

They could see what I was doing as it was projected up onto the whiteboard but I told them NOT to take it down as I didn’t want them to be distracted from the process. Then I left the sample paragraph on the board and they were then given 15 minutes to then create their own perfect paragraph. As I’m correcting them I’m trying to differentiate for the different difficulties (what a mouthful!) students are having and the hope is that practice will make perfect until everyone in the class is confident that they can write a perfect paragraph! That’s the theory anyway…

 Sample Perfect Paragraph

In many ways I think I would not like to have Romeo as a boyfriend, mostly because he is an obsessive romantic who is in love with the idea of being in love. For example, Romeo maintains that he is love-sick and heartbroken following Rosaline’s rejection. One minute he believes that “love is a smoke made with a fume of sighs” yet the next minute he is proclaiming undying love for Juliet. In my opinion it would be difficult to believe anything he says because he is so fickle. Secondly he’s very superficial – he loves Juliet not for who she is but for how she looks, which is clear in his dramatic pronouncement “Did my heart love til now? forswear it sight, for I ne’er saw true beauty til this night”. This soppy, over the top attitude towards love is not my style – if he were my boyfriend I’d spend my time rolling my eyes at his compliments and wishing he would stop being such a drama queen.

 

PLANNING YOUR INTRODUCTION = first, brainstorm 4 or 5 ideas. Next, number these ideas in the order in which you intend to discuss them. Now, write your introduction – you basically offer your response to the question asked, then give a brief list of the things your essay will discuss. Basically each idea in your list then forms the basis of each paragraph.

JUNIOR CYCLE ONLY (you need 6 – 8 paragraphs for senior cycle)

Sample Introduction

In many ways I would not like to have Romeo as a boyfriend. He is very dramatic about love, he changes his mind continuously, he can be impulsive and violent and he is a very moody individual. However, there are moments where I do like him, particularly when he risks death to be with Juliet.

NOW I KNOW HOW THIS PERSON WILL STRUCTURE THEIR ESSAY – paragraph one will discuss his attitude to love, paragraph two will discuss his impulsive, violent side, paragraph three will discuss his moodiness & multiple proclamations that he’ll commit suicide if he can’t be with Juliet and paragraph four will attempt to offer some balance by discussing some of his finer qualities, including his bravery and his determination.

Conclusion checklist:

Recap your response to the question (re-phrase – don’t repeat introduction word for word)

Focus on how you felt & what you learnt

Sample Conclusion

Thus, although Romeo is brave and determined, on balance I would not like to go out with him. He is too dramatic, too sincere, too romantic, too moody and too impulsive for my liking and I suppose what I have learnt about myself from answering this question is that I would prefer someone altogether calmer and more grounded as a boyfriend.

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