First of all, apologies for my long silences. No good reason, to be honest, but I am delighted to find, two days after a cataract operation, that the text on the screen is really quite dark and clear cut and not, as I thought, unnecessarily blurry. Perhaps it was that peering at a misty screen that was holding me back, even though I hotly denied it. So here I am.
Although I have been silent here, on this website, I have continued to write, alone and with teachers. I continue to see how writing for oneself informs the teaching of writing in powerful ways. I continue to find new pleasure in writing myself. Writing continues to help me think. Writing and drawing and saving ephemera helps me remember. I regret not writing more regularly about ordinary days. So I was inspired by the Foxes, a Year 5 and 6 class, as they created their own travel journals or holiday journals and I have created one of my own this summer.
We have made such journals before. Each one reflects the personality and potential activity of the maker. Many children fill them with their adventures; memories of a moment in time captured for the future. We choose our papers and the size and design of the journal. Some people, choose compact square shapes, to be tucked in a rucksack on a Lakeland walk. Others are more expansive, creating A5 and A4 notebooks with maps and pockets and different kinds of paper. Some focus on a particular holiday destination - slim volumes with maps of the place included, and others ambitiously gather enough pages and pockets to encompass the entire summer. Most of us choose to have two or three signatures in the notebook and we prefer thicker paper that will take watercolours, coloured inks or pastels. We plan to draw and write; to stick in photographs and entry tickets. Some of us may never start. Others will end up with a bulging collection of days out and projects at home.
You can find plenty of videos on line that will show you how to make a three or five hole bound book or you can simply choose a readymade notebook. I recommend Gwen Diehn’s The Illustrated Journal which has clear instructions for straightforward book binding and is full of suggestions and examples of ways to fill it. This kind of journal is very different from my own writer’s notebook, which is full of scrawl and quite a lot of nonsense, crossings outs, lists and the occasional cutting or bus ticket. I have always hesitated to take on an illustrated journal because it seems to me more public and, therefore, more self-conscious. However, this summer I have made a journal and have reached day seven. I am finding it a peaceful, meditative thing to do. It is nice to draw and use colour and to stick in sweet wrappers and a pressed flower from a bunch my daughter sent me. It calls for a different kind of writing and being.
Many summers ago, a teacher writer created a beautiful summer journal from a Collins Pocket Guide to the Seashore. The book itself was a lucky find in a second hand bookshop in the seaside town where she was staying. She transformed the book into a record of her holiday there. It was full of paintings and poems, maps and stories. It even contained a small compartment cut from the pages where shells could nestle. It was a beautiful object and a unique reminder of that time with her family.
May I suggest that you treat yourself to some quiet journal making? It can be whatever you wish it to be. More than anything it can be time for yourself. And, as you know, any kind of writing and making can find itself back into the life of your classroom. The website holds plenty of ideas to start you writing and drawing, so have a look. I decided to offer a small list of prompts for the month of August, just because I was playing with the idea of alphabets, and it is always fun to have a new list.
Gather a little stash of pencils and papers, colour and tape, scissors and glue. Set a little time aside. Have a lovely summer.