Ranting about writing for SATS!!!

It's a tricky thing this blog writing if you're a children's author - who exactly is it for? Young people who read your books or your friends, your colleagues and any other adults who may be interested? So this post, though it is still mostly me ranting, is going to be in two parts - one for younger people and one for the more wrinkly reader. Younger version first then!

This bit's for kids...

In the past few weeks, I have had an amazingly exciting time, doing lots of different things from taking part in a Swimathon in aid of local charities (nearly killed me - I am not such a good swimmer as Grace in 'Fur'!!!) to starting to teach an adult creative writing group to doing several school visits. If you're at St John Bosco School, Moor Hall School, Leigh C of E School or Pinfold St Primary, hello! I enjoyed all my visits - they were all different and I had a fantastic welcome everywhere. You have some very special teachers and are doing some very exciting writing. I am particurlarly keen to know, however, whether Caesar survived last Thursday or whether that man Brutus who was skulking around Leigh School in a toga, bumped him off in the end. Could someone let me know, please? It's a shame if Caesar died - I thought he made quite a good job of pretending to be a deputy head. The laurel wreath was a bit of a give away though.

I thoroughly enjoyed helping all of you get going with your story writing and would love to hear how you got on. What happened to all those Bad Babies? How did you get on at Pinfold Street with all your terrible boating disasters? And all the people who were working on funny stories, do send me any which you think will make me laugh!

And please tell me what you think about story writing in schools. Do you enjoy it? Is it fun? Do you prefer to have complete freedom to 'do your own thing' or do you quite like having a lot of help and input from a teacher or an author? Those of you who have used writing frames, like Boxing Clever, do you like doing that? Does it help? I'd also love to hear what you like and don't like about author visits. Authors visit schools a lot these days but we don't always get feedback on what went well and what didn't. Sometimes I leave forms for teachers to fill in but it seems a bit mean as they have so much to do anyway.

My new book, 'Piper' will be published on October 31st so I'm getting excited about doing my launch event at Myton School in Warwick - but am less happy to find a note on my desk this evening. The local newspaper wants me to get in touch about it which probably means another photo. I get teased a lot about how much my photo is in the newspaper (it was even in for the Swimathon) and I always feel really embarrassed about it. Definitely one of the worse things about being an author - but you have to go along with it for publicity. With so many new books being published all the time, you really have to do everything possible to get yours noticed! If any body has any bright ideas for publicity stunts, let me know!

This bit's for grown ups...

This week's rant then!

I love visiting primary schools! I'm always amazed by the enthusiasm and energy of the teachers and their incredibly caring, patient attitude to the children. I learn a lot from working alongside them which I often do as I frequently run workshops rather than doing the traditional author talk and reading. But I really do question what on earth is going on with year 6 SATS. Can someone explain to me why 11 year olds are expected to be able to write a coherent short story in 45 minutes, a task the majority of adults would be completely incapable of doing? Short story writing is possibly the most sophisticated and subtle type of creative writng there is - yet children, some of whom are struggling with basic literacy, are assessed under exam conditions on this task - 15 mins to plan, 30 to write. We'd like a beginning, middle and ending, please, clear establishment of characters and setting, the development of a problem which will be resolved in a suitably satisfying way, a build up of tension - oh, and we'd like to know a bit about the feelings of the characters as well. Clear use of connectives, varied sentence openings, adverbs, adjectives, similes and metaphors, please, and a suitable amount of dialogue - make sure you use speech marks and paragraphing correctly!

Right, no sweat! I did actually write one once, to see if it could be done. I just managed it but only because I didn't plan - and if an examiner could have read my handwriting, it would have been a miracle.

A school I visited recently was using a story frame technique called Boxing Clever which I could see was a reasonably effective tool for helping kids to jump through the necessary hoops - a kind of jig-saw puzzle approach to story-writing. These are the bits you need - it's up to you to fit them together. I had huge admiration for the young teacher using the system who's dynamism was utterly inspiring. He and the other teachers I met were absolutely doing the best they could for the kids they were teaching.

But what professional writer uses a story frame? OK, some write to a formula or a very strict brief but that is entirely different from a frame which suggests that these are the 'bits' you need for a story and what writers do is put them together. I certainly don't work in that way (though it might appear so from the product) and I've never met anyone who does. If professional writers don't create stories by using frames, why are kids being taught to use them? Not because they're a real tool used by real professionals but because they're a crutch invented to help kids be examined in a task which is completely inappropriate for them. Yes, allow children to write creatively in school - of course the joy of that should be nurtured. But the only reason they're being examined at all is because it's politically expedient - so why set such a sophisticated literary task that teachers and educationalists are having to come up with task specific tools to get their kids through it? If you have to test their literacy at all (and, I being an ex-home-educator and raving educational liberal, would argue that you shouldn't), for heavens sake, set them a simple, age appropriate literacy task - not something that would stretch a literary genius! Then they might have some time left over for having some fun writing creatively and their teachers (the saints!) would have one less hugely burdensome target to worry about.

Any politicians who'd like to send me their short stories that they've written on a random topic in 45 minutes, are welcome to do so. If I think they're good enough (see the criteria above - oh, and make sure your opening is stunning too so you immediately grab my interest), then I will publish them on my web-site. Meanwhile, I'll carry on helping teachers and children have fun writing creatively - if it helps with the SATS, that's a bonus! Meg