00:00 – Trailer
01:01 – Intro
01:33 – Is creative writing dying or moving
03:27 – Where stories live now
04:32 – Reading & writing trends
06:15 – Micro-formats
09:26 – What counts as writing
10:43 – AI in everyday writing
15:23 – Mediums & authenticity
19:47 – Handwriting vs typing
29:01 – Tech vs imagination
35:31 – Focus & environment
37:27 – Building the habit
40:52 – Practice over time
41:36 – Experience feeds writing
43:07 – Classroom scaffolds
47:41 – Common hurdles
52:01 – Language shift
55:04 – Why writing still matters
56:26 – Outro & Christmas teaser

Trailer

Every single type of writing presents a different challenge. When I look at my writing when I was like six or seven, itdidn’t make any sense. Doing things like that were wrong, but they were exploratory and good.When you’re young, you have like loads of different paths and loads of different things you can do and lots ofpotential. And then you narrow you experiment, you learn, and you narrow it down. As you build up your life experience andstuff like that, you start to want to write it down. You be become a better writer because of that experience. Theamount of focus in the world is limited. Now everyone has access to storieseverywhere wherever they are all the time. They’re getting their feel of stories. They’re not necessarily doingcreative writing. It’s still relevant. It’s still important, but it’s in danger ofextinction. The Education Lounge podcast.

Intro

Okay, we’ve made it to our 50th episode. Yeah. Yeah. Didn’t know we’d get that, butYeah. Well, we’re here. Um, so today we’re going to look at writing. Now, Iknow we did an episode on writing last year, I believe, on whether it’s still important or not. Um, so we’re going torevisit that topic, but we’re going to look at it more in terms of well, obviously it’s still important,but also where has it gone? Yeah. And there’s more more of a focus on the creative writing.

Is creative writing dying or moving

Yeah. Yeah. Aspect. So, where has it gone?Well, is it still here? It it it’s I think just about Okay. Where would you find where wouldyou find it if you were looking for it? Um well we still obviously in school anduniversities and places like that we still write and we we write quite often.Um with the advent of AI people are writing less. Um as they’re relying on these largelanguage mod it took you less than a minute to talk about AI. No, but it it was obviously coming.People are outsourcing more writing to to these tools.Funnily enough, I think people are there’s there’s an explosion in terms ofthe amount of publishing that’s going on. So, more and more content being created. You think that’s because ofpart it partially driven by that, but I think it’s also just platform explosion.So, okay. You know, things things like Reddit I’m I mean I’m I’m broadening the idea ofwriting out quite a lot. Does Reddit count as creative writing? I don’t know.Sort of. I mean, it’s still writing. There’s some creative stuff on there. Yeah.I’m I’m sure like most of the story is made up. Yeah. There’s some creativeuh writing going on there. Like some artistic license. Yeah. So, a lot. So, I do I do think it’s stillIt’s still relevant. It’s still important, but it’s in danger ofextinction. Extinction. Yeah. I think I think it’s been a long time coming. I think it’s been gradual prettymuch over our specific millennial lifetime. Mhm.

Where stories live now

um you think about well video games for example it’s it’s more I think my mytheory is more where do people get their stories fromplaying a story game like like GTA or Red Dead or something like that orthe you know explosion of online streaming cuz before obviously it would be likeyou get a DVD or whatever it is and you have that but now everyone has access tostories everywhere wherever they are all the time and in loads of differentformats whether it’s gaming or audio books orreading um yeah TV shows movies storiesfrom other people on YouTube they’re getting their feel of stories they’re not necessarilydoing creative writing you’re saying reading’s going And areyou like because well well I can tell you reading yeah I mean it is we did an episode of reading as well.

Reading & writing trends

Yeah reading enjoyment 32.7% of peopledaily reading 18.7% of people I think this is world is that world or UK? It might beUK. That’s quite low. Yeah. Yeah it is quite low. Um, oh yeah.So, one in three, so 32.7% of 8 to 18 year olds enjoyreading in free time. One in five, which is 18.7% read daily. Yeah. And then one in fourroughly, so 26.6%. 18 to 8 to 18 year olds enjoy writing.And one in 10, so about 10% 10.4% write daily in their free time. That’smore than I would have thought. I would I’m surprised that just over 10% writedaily in their free time. What’s the definition for writing in this regard?What’s the That’s a good point. I mean, I think because it depends what you considerwriting. I would assume based on the research that we did it’s based on creative writingbut you could well you can argue loads of hang on if it’s writing in your freetime then that’s not work that’s not emails or whatever else that’s free timenow that might be journaling it might be diary it might be writing a book wedon’t know writing a postdoes There’s a lot of gray gray areas in this. Yeah. Yeah. Cuz tech Yeah. I mean, people do did

Micro-formats

originally at least use Twitter for creative writing to see you Yeah. There’s things like can you get a storyin 140 characters? That’s a creative task. No. Yeah. I’ I’ I’d count that aswriting. Yeah. Even even though it might seem like writing a story in in a limitedamount of words is or characters or whatever is it’s a challenge.Yeah, it’s it’s difficult creative writing task. Yeah, I’ve been watching Taskmaster recently and one of the one of the umtasks was to write a 10word story describing your life from when you were born to where you are now. 10 words thatsix word stories is like the sort of traditional traditional idea I think is onlysix words. Why six word? I think it it’s something to do with Ernest Hemingway. So he there’s thisthere’s this legend that essentially he wrote a six-word story which was babyshoes for sale never worn. Well,or so something like that. But I don’t know whether it’s actually him like it’s it’s more of a legendlegend states. So well, how similar is that to like a haiku or or limmerick or something?Very Yeah, it’s very similar. Um haikus are obviously you have the sets of five,seven, and five syllables. Uh they tend to be about nature and theycan be combined together. So, you’ve got like one verse of one haiku verse and another Viku verse.I didn’t know that. Yeah. Maybe we can um after we’ve recorded this find find one to like put somewherehere. Yeah. We’ll see if we can find something to explain what haiku is. And and I think inin Japanese it might be more challenging actually because they’ve got a lot of syllables in in each word.That’s true. I’ve only ever heard them in English. Like when when you say like hello, it’s likethat’s a lot of syllables. I thought it was Oh, yeah. Yeah. Uhthere’s still four sy and isdoes the pattern still stay the same if you do it in Japanese? Umyeah, like like it’s it came the haiku is Japanese. Yeah, I know. Butyeah, I don’t know. I’ve just never I’ve never heard it in Japanese. I’ve only ever heard it. Yeah, that’s where the I think that’s why they do it because in Japaneseit’s a quite a beautiful language with short wordsstory. I think it’s more challenging in Japanese. Yeah. It’s their equivalent of a six word story. Exactly.Yeah. Japanese also is quite difficult because the grammar’s quite complicated. So theendings of the words change and that makes it moreI’ve not really looked into Japanese but I did for a while but yeah it’s it’s hard to it’s quite a difficult language.The probably the hardest that I’ve tried to learn. So, we were speaking about talking on um or writing on things like

What counts as writing

Twitter and social media posts and whether basicallywhat medium would you say is creative writing andwhat isn’t is everything. I think it well I’ve come to theconclusion that is everything. Every single type of writing presents adifferent challenge. Mhm. So, it’s like writing a good email is noless a valuable skill than writing a story. It’s probably arguablymore more valuable nowadays. Both both are useful. Um and both arebut but I mean depends what you mean by valuable in the working world. Yeah. Umyou’re going to be doing that a lot more than writing a story. There’s very few people who can write a good email,I’d say. But it’s also intent. What’s the purpose? Are you trying to persuade? Areyou trying to Yeah. sell? Are you giving information? Are you having a informal conversation? Areyou relaying information to your accountant or what you’re doing? So, yeah, it does depend who you’re writing for, what’s theintent? Um, because that will determine whether it’s formal, informal, all sorts of

AI in everyday writing

things. I mean, back to the AI thing. I do I have like things like Grammarly installed or Apple Intelligence orwhatever on my email um app. So, I’ll write it out and then I’llI’m not fond of some of the alterations that it makes. Oh, I don’t agree with all of them. No,I don’t use all of them. But now when I go when I try and reply to an email, usually the Apple stuff gives you thetwo options like yes or no. So someone asks you a question, you say you can click yes and it will generate theanswer automatically for you. So rather than me writing it and it adjusting it, now it writes it and I adjust it.But doesn’t it take away your not in a sense? No, because I know what my answer to thequestion is. It’s usually I only use it for small things like you get an email that says can youprovide um information like from the accounts can you provide information about your accounts from blah blah blahblah blah blah you can press yeah you press yes or no comes up like no I don’thave these available whatever yes says something like yes I’ll send themthrough shortly yeah when it’s like a fullon I’m talking to a new client explaining what their classesbook and that sort of stuff. I would write that. Yeah. Sometimes I get it to rephrasewhat I’ve said slightly to Yeah. So make it a certain way, but I I like towrite a lot of it first time on my own so I get a goodI don’t know. I’ve seen your chat GPT searches. Yeah, I’ve seen the the emails. You can tellespecially when they come through and you’ve got like an M dash or you know I I like M dashes and then chat GP’sruined it for me. I I I hate them now. I hate No, because M dashes are absolutely brilliant for punctuation. Quite oldfashioned really. Um and now I feelit overuses it a little bit, but it’s one of the telltale signs that you’ve used. I don’t really like,to be honest, most of the time M dashes are the right form of punctuation.I just flat out refuse to use them now cuz they’re just everywhere. They’re just they’re like semicolons butmore usable and better in if you want to sort of create a bit of suspense orsomething like that, then they’re they’re better. So they’re typically used more in fiction than non-fiction,which is why they they work well in things like blogs. They work well in things like copy. Well, this brings us back to the wholewhat medium is um being used at the moment becauseit’s a it’s kind of a different form of writing. So imagine going from writingby hand, which we used to do at school, say you have to write imagine writing a novel by hand. If you have mistakes, youhave to or like a typewriter. Yeah. Like Wednesday, I don’t know.Yeah, it’s interesting. You know why the um the querty keyboard, you know why it isset up the way that it is? People used to think somewhere people used to think it was to do withthe letters being close to what you actually type. It’s set up so that the arms of a typewriter don’t cross overeach other. Makes a lot of sense. So we’ve done people they they tried switching it back to ABCD and nobodycould use it. So they went back to querty and that’s why we still have But I don’t think the ABCD would work verywell. Doesn’t matter who. Yeah, but that’s only because you’re used to quy. I don’t know. I’m not very used to thealphabet. But it doesn’t it doesn’t make like ordering it by ABCD doesn’t makesense. It makes sense to order it by letters most used and in a way that’swhat like it makes sense to put vowels on one side and then No, cuz then you’re constantly going tobe going over to one side. No, but you can type. It’s just because it’s what you’re usedto. Like for example, James had um a guy from Forest episode, the second episodeup there, link somewhere. Um he started using a Polish keyboard when he was living inPoland and he started getting used to that and then he went back to Quiety and he couldn’t couldn’t do it. So it’s justwhat you’re used to. We’ve just been had decades and decades and I don’t knowhow old is high prices. Not centuries are they? No. No. Decades then. We had decades of ofquy keyboards. Back to the medium thing. Um, let’s list them off. So, we said socials

Mediums & authenticity

posts. We’ve said Twitter and all that sort of stuff. Blogs where you’re writing forYeah. You do blogs. I do blogs. What you writing for? Well, it depends because you can can bedoing reflective blogs. You can be doing blogs for your own enjoyment. You can be doing blogs that are geared towardsmarketing. And all of them to websites. Yeah. All of them will have differentsort of approaches and ways that you’d different approaches but same medium.Yeah. And you also have more things to think about. You have to think about imagery and you know SEO tags andthings you wouldn’t have to do when you’re writing by hand. It depends of what you’re aiming for with your blog. If you’re aiming for alarge number of impressions and great amount of reach, then you need to think a lot more about SEO. But I think forthe average person who just wants to blog about something they’re interested in, like they they want they’re using as asort of store of information in a sense, it’s like kind of like a long form Twitter for some people.Yeah. They they don’t they don’t really need to think about that. And that that’s actually quite liberating not tothink about the constraints. Yeah, cuzwhen you’re thinking all all the time about the reader and you’re not writing as much for yourself, it can beI found that. Yeah. But I think uh in because as theinternet has changed,formational posts are less useful in a way. So, you’re looking for more of that personalinsight and actually putting your own personal tone into what you’re writingis well, it’s um it’s again back to the AI AI thing because the more you have AIwriting and stuff like that, the more valuablesomething like a spelling mistake from a human becomes cuz you know it’s had somebody that’swouldn’t say valuable, it’s more I don’t I would never consider that.I still wouldn’t consider it valuable. I think getting your spelling right isn’tbut it’s more real is my point. But no, I can tell that that as a human has actually sat and thought aboutYeah. to say rather than their virtual assistant talking to my virtual assistant or whatever it is.But it’s also because the chatbot or whatever doesn’t have personal experiences.Yeah, that’s the point. Sorry. No, no, but the the whole mistake thing, I thinkso ruling out as many mistakes as you can in your writing is probably a good probably a good thing.Yeah, I know. I’m saying I’m saying that it’s a giveaway that a human has writtenit is is my point. Yeah. But I wouldn’t say it offers morevalue necessarily. It’s subjective inYou’ve not done any done music production before, have you? No. So really in music, say you’ve got like the highhat every every beat and you put it into yourdoor, your digital audio workspace window, whatever it’s called. Um, when they’re all exactly like 100 interms of volume is the equivalent of like an AI writing. It’s very syotic and sy. You can put in pluginsthat have like randomizer so that it randomizes the velocity of the high hatsto make it sound more human. Yeah. I think that’s going to become a thing in in AI writing where they purposelymake it a bit less perfect to make it more real. Anything but perfect. Um, I thinkthey’re already doing that because you can see it in cuz we’ve got pro GPT reviews in it a fair bitand I can see the personality in a sense. I found it when when you talk to it cuzthere’s like little giggles and that they’ve put in. It’s kind of a bit creepy, but also it’smore real if you listen to it, but it makes me feel weirder about it because I know that someone’s programmed that in.Yeah. So, well, we’ve gone back on.Um, any other mediums? Do you want to go on to like talking about books, games, audio books, all that? I was thinking about pen pens and

Handwriting vs typing

pencils as well as opposed to typing cuz I think I’ve started to really prefer that.Well, for certain things, if I’m doing like a to-do list or diary entry or journaling or any of that sort of stuff,I like a nice pen and a nice book. When it comes to learning, because obviouslywe work in education, there is a big advantage to writing witha pen or a pencil over over typing. Yeah. Yeah. Becauseit it’s sort of strange in a sense because everything in our lives we sayin business or whatever you’re always thinking in terms of efficiency but that’s not how the brain works. So,well, it kind of does, but no, but in terms of you’d think if you were typing something and you’re able toget, let’s say, better quality notes and write more information quickly, that would be better for learning andthat would be better for retaining stuff, but that’s not how the brain works.Yeah. If even if you have handwritten notes that are poor quality, poor quality,they will always surpass Yeah. um typed notes like they’ve done quite alot of studies on this and they’ve shown that if you writeyou absorb it more. Yeah. If even if you write 75% more typed, youhave enhanced performance in things like test situations. I can write so much more type than I canby hand. Mhm. To write by hand takes me a long time. Typing I can do without looking. That’swhy writing is better like with like physically that’s why children should learn how to write no matterwhat because and also in terms of language acquisition it happens quickerif you if you’re forming the actual Yeah. Yeah. Because the concentration required to do that um you know how they say as asneurons fire you neurons that fire together wire together. Yeah. Um because you’ve got more neuronsactivating when you’re writing because it’s more there’s more things do. Yeah. Yeah. You actuallyremember what you write down much better. Mhm. But you’d think so the the way youtypically think is that okay well if I’m typing and I can write something betterquality that allows my brain that frees up space for my brain to remember more. But that’s not how it’s kind ofcounterintuitive. Well, that’s not quality. That’s quantity. But but even if it was better quality.Even if your notes are better quality and have more information in there,Yeah. you retain so much less than if you evenif you’d written 20% of what you typed. Mhm. You’d retain more from what you write.Yeah. So, even when I’m when I was learning Mandarin, I’d write down I’ I’dconcentrate on writing words. I wouldn’t type stuff. And I was like, typing is kind of useless for language learningcuz you’re you’re not you you get to learn how to use the keyboard and stuff like that, but you really don’t rememberstuff. Yeah. Um, so that’s a tip for any anystudents. We’re going to we’re going to come on to some tips um a little bit later on. Um,we can look at uh the we mentioned gaming andother things. Mhm. In terms of less about writing and more where people are getting their stories from.Yeah. Do you think that the fact that everyone has tons of stories basically in theirpocket in several different mediums is part of the reason why um people arewriting less. So before you answer, let me give you a couple of examples or stats, right? Do you know how many age11 people, age 11 kids have um mobilephones? A lot. Uh it’s a percentage. 60%.91. That’s a lot. That’s more than that’s a lot more than I thought. Although wait,they usually they get them. So you people going into secondary? Yeah, I’dprobably expect them to have have them. Okay. What about five to seven year olds for smartphones specifically?50. One in four. Does it still match? Really?Yeah. I don’t think I don’t know if I agree with it. No, I mean I don’t I know a year ninestudent that comes here that doesn’t the mom and dad don’t give her a phone. I think it’s a good thing.Yeah. Even even though it’s hard for a teenager, it’s it’sdifficult because if they’re their social group or peers are on there then Yeah. It can be a little isolating.Thing is, I I got a phone when I went to secondary school, but it obviously wasn’t a smartphone. Mhm.So, you don’t have all of the videos and games and all that stuff. Imagine if you you could onlycommunicate with your friends via fax. Send me a fax. I get that.Yeah, it’s a pro. Well, it’s better for you definitely.Um, yeah. So, that’s that’s the mobile phone. Um, about gaming, I’m just going to do some of these stats. How many So,we got 8 to 17 year olds in the UK specifically, 97% of them game.It certainly is a is a a big thing now. So do you think and then um lastly wella couple more things actually broadcast TV 4 to 15 year olds they are three 3 hours and 20 minutes aweek roughly watching broadcast TV which before all these thingswould have been would have been a lot more but it would have been the only the only thing and then going up into 25to 44 year olds they 25 to 30% watch podcasts weekly.So, it’s a source of information. Do you think there’s a a correlation and or causation between the number ofdifferent mediums that give us stories and the amount of stories that we are actually writing?Yeah. It would be Yeah. As in it would be inverse, wouldn’t it? So as as you ifyou’ve got things competing for your attention cuz that kind of that’s what it boils down to like the amount offocus in the world is limited and and the amount of attention in the world islimited as you have more things competing for that focus and attentionthen the number of forms of entertainment rise but thensome of those other forms will decrease especially the ones that were more prevalent before.But then there will be people making this stuff as well. Yeah. But then they can’tthen there won’t all be professionals like there won’t all be like a Netflix or BBC or whatever. We we do stuff onhere. Mhm. We have to kind of story tell for some of these some of the stuff. Like one ofthe last videos that we did, we did a whole Yeah. there’s like a story line to it. So, do you think writing is going inother places instead? So, specifically people that are, you know, not writing for the BBC or writingfor Netflix or whatever, like people like us. I don’t know if are people on averagewriting more. I I I really don’t think that’s the case. So I think as otherforms of media crowd out that I mean it’s a form of entertainment at at the most basic level.Mhm. And if there’s other ways to do that then people are going to do more of thatthing especially if it gains algorithmic traction. If you change the algorithm soon all of these platforms so that somehow writingbecomes the most profitable form of content production and the most lovedand liked then and the most pushed then you couldI’m not going to go over again but there are tools that that can do that stuff for you now. Yeah, but as in it doesn’tit replaces it in terms of what’s out there, but it doesn’t it doesn’t replacereally what it does for you, which is um strengthen those neural connections andlike all the benefits of writing far outweigh the benefits of doing anything else. Yeah,that’s the problem. Let’s talk about writing at school givenwhat we do here. Yeah. Um I mean you you’ve done a lot of GCSE

Tech vs imagination

English teaching. Yeah. Uh the from an educational perspectperspective, you always got to think about what you should do. What’s thewhat should we be pushing in education? And I thinksometimes we jump the gun and we think, okay, we’re going to give loads of technologyto schools and that’s the way forward because that’s how the world works. ButI believe that some analog education,analog ways of doing things are just intrinsically better than thesedigital ways of doing things. So like I said, typing does not replacewriting. There are some things that that I think are useful. So if you if you think aboutthe VR stuff for example, if you put put on a VR headset and you can seelike I don’t know the biology of how a human nervous system works or mechanically how engine is togetherlike in front of you on this table. Mhm. or walking with dinosaurs or you know that sort of stuffthat I can see that being valuable but I agree it’s not going to outweighOh, it’s I think it’s inspiring as in it can certainly inspirebut I also inspire children because they they see it in 3D and yeah it’s all very immersive but I Ialso think that is one of the reasons that people’simaginations have just disappeared. You try and get one of the kids to write a story here and struggleand it’s literally that they can’t think of anything. I don’t think that was the case 10 yearsago, 15, 20 years ago. If you think about that VR example, so that imagine you could explore the lungsand you’re like a person walking through the lungs and all that that that might be very immersive.But if you were to draw a detailed diagram of those lungs, where do youthink you’d learn more? Like actually, you mean if they were to draw it? Yeah.Yeah. Yeah, I know. If they were to draw it out like that, but with it again with this stuff, Ialways think it’s is very much alike a a mixture. So, watching that then doing the drawing thing, maximum effector write more because it’s more effective depending on what the task is. We’retalking about the the the lung thing. Writing about the lungs is not the same as watching and drawing them.No, it’s true. Um, depends what the again what the purpose is. The holistic approach with with some ofthe videos, some of the immersive stuff, some of the drawing, some of the writing isno, but to learn this conflicts with what we’ve said earlier in I remember we did thatpodcast on sort of learning styles. Learning styles are a myth. Yeah. Yeah.And you it doesn’t it doesn’t actually make sense to mix mix the ways that youexperience things because there’s one there’s actually there’s one thing forthere’s one specific way to get good at specific Okay. For for this learning about the lungs example.Well, we’d have to do some research into what was the most effective way to Well, no. What do you think it is?I think drawing diagrams of things is pretty effective for learning biology.Yeah. But I also think seeing an animation of it and then drawing him will be moreeffective. I think animations are very effective when you have a conceptualwhen you’ve got a conceptual limit. Yeah. But you’re not going to draw you’re not going to draw the lungs without knowing what they look like, areyou? Otherwise, you’re going to be learning. No, you you’d have to you’d have to look at her. That’s what I mean. That’s what I said.Yeah. So, you look at the thing first and then you draw it. Yeah. There’s Yeah. I mean, there’s abit of both, isn’t there? So, some level of kinestheticstuff, but VR is really exciting in that way. Um, and so are these like AIworlds, you could like create literally anything, but it does somewhat worry mebecause I think the tendency for humanity is to go withpath of least resistance. Yes. M um same as neural pathways, same as mammalsin general. But that is not that is not how you should educate people. No, you you you need some sort ofadversity. Yeah. In order to grow grow. It’s it’s a bit like a lot of parentslike, oh no, you can’t just don’t like writing. They they know deep inside. Wehave to get them to write. Yeah. I didn’t like writing either. Yeah. I had to do it, but I never liked But even even though it’s hard to do andpeople don’t like doing it, it doesn’t mean that you should avoid it. It means it’s something to actuallydouble down on and try to But you can also learn to like it. I I made myself like it.Yeah. Yeah. You you have to change your attitudes. It’s same with reading. I was never a big reader, writer.Mhm. I was very much like I want to build a thing or do some music or whatever it is,but I’ve had to teach myself to learn to enjoy. Yeah. enjoyment isn’t the it soundssounds bad but I think if you appro approach everything in educationso you only do what you enjoy well then you’re not really you can’t growthe things that you enjoy and especially children are generally the things you’re already good atyeah exactly and that’s only because you feel good doing them because youMhm. Mhm. You just you can do them already. You can meet other people, whatever it is. Or it gives you dopamine hit. That’s what I mean. Yeah.Which case? You just have classrooms of people on Instagram scrolling. Like whatpeople enjoy is not what gives them the most benefit. Yeah.So yeah, writing is one of those things. It’s it it can be it’s laborious forsome people who don’t take to it. Well, sometimes I don’t feel like writing something, but I have to like get myselfto write it. And sometimes it can be about being in the wrong environment. You say the environment really

Focus & environment

um I I struggle in a if anything’s happening around me, Ireally struggle to actually write almost anything like I need to really block it out completely. So, getting into awriting mode. I think that’s one of the things in this world as well,the amount of distraction. Yeah, it’s only going to get worse.You’ve got to create space for yourself and and it can be quite difficult. Iunderstand in school and stuff like that as well, it’s not always the best environment for and children are tryingto write. I mean, they’ve got like this person playing with that, whatever, andrunning around and shouting and that kind of thing. They’re going to struggle to focus and write.So, they need children need the right environment inwhich to excel. Yeah. I think also, yeah, environment, routine.Mhm. Well, I’m in this place, therefore, I’m doing this. There’s that whole What wasit? Walking through the door. Walking through a doorway resets your what is it? Oh, um it it sort of resets youryour it creates it’s a different frame, isn’t it? So you as you walk through thedoor, your perception of everything changes and then your resets. Yeah.Yeah. So, so a lot of the time when you walk out ofif you walk from one room to another, you forget what you were going in there for. Yeah. Like going to the I always do thatbetween the kitchen and the living room or whatever. Walk from the living roomtrying to get something from the kitchen and I forget why I’m in the kitchen. You should not get on the wall. That won’t happen anymore.Open plan. Yeah, that’s why. So should we move on to how we can maybe

Building the habit

improve these things for children and adults too? When I was writing the most,it went back into what what you were saying about setting a routine. So you didn’t you were going to a coffeeplace on a Friday. Is that what you’re going to talk about? Well, well, with with blogs, I did that. Yeah.And I went to the same one. That’s also I I think having a predictableenvironment. Yeah, because it triggers other things. You know that that that site, that coffee, that seat triggersyou to also think I should be writing now. That’s why I’d encourage like for instance parents to create a place forplay, create a place for study, create a place for reading like a reading reading cornerand that sort of thing because the environment in which you surroundyourself with dictates how you react. So with blogging, I did that. But when Iwas at university, I did a number of things. I joinedwriting a writing society and that that was good becauseit opens your mind and you hear other people’s writing which helps improveyour own. And I also I also attended like saypoetry slams and that sort of thing. So um listen topeople from around the country and and from uh abroad and how they approachwriting. What I also did wassay I was I was writing two novels at one pointand in order to get those novels completed still unpublished like I haven’t likethey’re not very good. Um, I woke up at6 in the morning every day and I wrote for an hourand that and I could write up to about a thousand wordsroughly and you you’re just thinking about that word count to be honest. So setting targets for your writing can be a goodthing. So yeah, so goals and targets is the same same as anything you want toachieve. But it was it was just this this neat I don’t know inside me to write something.But not everybody has that. Yeah, you need to figure outI I think that’s if if you’re really really serious about developing writing, you want to have a something deeperinside you or you you want to express yourself in some way and you’re not able to and that’s whywriting worked for me. Well, this it comes it’s the same as the whole journaling thing, isn’t it? justwrite what’s on your mind or even if you can’t think about what to write like atechnique is like just writing I don’t know what to write I don’t know what to write and just keep doing thatand then stuff will start to to come out so that’s another tip for nonnon-writers to start just by doing that I want to just talk about something you said you said you said you you started two novels they’re unpublished and yousaid they’re not very good yeah So this comes back to getting

Practice over time

the whole practice makes perfect thing. A lot of people will start to write um especially children realize that it’snot good and then not do it anymore. Yeah. I mean there’s definitelythey might maybe they’ve got some potential but but you got to get through that much toYeah. like as in I’ve the first novel was definitely weaker than the secondnovel. So, so maybe my third one will beamazing, but you still need a story that you really want to write that and I hadthose stories back then. And I’d say in some ways write writing’s

Experience feeds writing

sometimes a young man’s game in that cuz your creative juices are to flow and you’ve got the time, mental space toactually be creative. And I’d say at university I had that.But it’s also I’ve noticed an old person face. So as you get older,as you build up your life experience and stuff like that, you start to want to write it down. Yeah. And you you you be become a betterwriter because of that experience. One one thing that prevents a lot ofyounger people from I’d say specifically in 11 plus is their range of experience.So something that can really limit e even if they’re they they could be sointelligent and stuff like that. Writing is the sum it is the sum of your experiences andexposures. And there’s there’s no better way to work out how much you know than write.The more you know, the better you’ll be able to write. Um, which is whyI’d always encourage parents to give their children wide experiences and be exposed to a wide range ofvocabulary, environment, use words in different ways, environments, people. Mhm.Yeah. Um there’s a couple of things on here that we can um we can talk about. Um so these

Classroom scaffolds

in terms of tips of helping people to start writing. So yeah, there’s the task for year years four and four to six orprimary school and it’s based on giving a constraint. Tasks are generally easier when there’ssome sort of parameter or parameters. If it’s an open-ended because you get a mixture, don’t you?You get like write about this thing that with this character and whatever else or you geta title like write a story titled the key go like which one’s easierthe constraint one image three nouns one feeling that’s one you’ve got um yearsseven to n stage three two viewpoints of the same scene 50 to 70 words eachso you’re thinking from other people’s perspective as Oh, GCSE, I mean, is is moreuh more complex. They’ve done um they’ve changed the English languagecreative writing slightly in that they’re trying to make it so so they they typically did an image like one ofthe tasks was an image and they said describe sort of write an image based onthe picture. Um and now they’ve broadened it so it doesn’t need to. Sothey’ve added an extra line which is like it doesn’t need to be completely based on the picture completely. They’vemade it broader just to cover because I think a lot of people would struggle with that like ifthey got a picture that they didn’t like then but there’s usually a choice. I mean inthe actual exam you’re talking about yeah there’s there’s there’s two. So,but I I think he could make it harder for some people because they do broaden their choices. TheyThat’s what I mean. More with it. More tighter parameters make it makesomething easier to do. But you also could and also another thing they’ve done is that the storydoesn’t need to be complete. So, it doesn’t need to resolve. It canbe like the opening chapter to a book or something like that which I think is better.Yeah. I Yeah, that is better. Good writingI believe a lot of the time requires a lot of patience.I think good anything requires patience. But I think a lot of younger people, yousay we we teach a lot of kids how to get into independent schools and 11 plus andthat sort of thing. And what I’d say is they tend to be very focused on getting through things, moving things,going through the timeline through through the hoops and transition transition transition. Yeah. Yeah. and they have no they struggle alot with building building a world. So actually constructing it.What I tend to do when I tend to when I was teaching this sort of stuff um for awriting story writing exam I would say to create your characters before the actual exam.And when you’re doing your writing use those characters in every every one of your stories so you kind of you kind ofknow them as people. Yeah. And when you go into you don’t have to think about names and characters when you go into an actual exam. It’sjust yeah you’re creating you just drop them into their environment and yeah creating archetypes. Yeahpretty much. Um I like that idea but I guess that’s specifically for exams and notfor like creative writing life enjoyment that sort of stuff. There’s a couple of scaffolding tasks that we can give aswell. So here openings you can name the scene and the moodwithin two or three lines. That’s something a lot of people forget to do. This is the whole world building thingthat I think was alluded to. Um, they don’t, a lot of kids struggle to use theright vocabulary because they don’t think about the moodthat they’re trying to create. I don’t think they know. Like wheneverI’m, you know, especially younger kids, it’s like, well, I’m, you know, the world is Sonic World or the world isMinecraft or the world is Yeah. It’s like, no, these are No. No. Yeah. These are what I mean theimagination is not there anymore. It’s it’s been replaced by over stimulated

Common hurdles

a lot other bits. A lot of people a lot of kids struggle with another thing that young kids tendto struggle with quite a lot is sequencing as in like order of things happeninga little bit but also transitions between things and event and event. Soplanning, right? Planning portion like their their no one likes to plan or do working out.Their story doesn’t cohhere. Yeah. But I’d actually argue that.So we we’ve done some 11 we’ve done some seven plus prep, you know, kind of thing.Yeah. I’m doing some at the moment. I think it it would be unfairto expect a child of that age to come up with something coherent.Yeah. And I think that can be quite limiting to their development.Explain like imposing order on them so early. Sonot given so not not given the open freedom to Yeah. I I actually think writing shouldbe more but again would it not be better to have a mixture like some tasks are moreclosed off and some some tasks are do what you wantsome yeah sometimes you don’t get you don’t want to get them used to one type of yeah but at that age I don’t think I Ithink that can actually impede their writing what having mixture of open-ended andwell I’d say like the closedended stuff um yeah having just one of them is will do.Yeah. Um you’re on the diversity. That is it’s a hard balance I thinkbecause if you’re preparing them for exam you have to teach them that. But Ithink it can be quite I think long term the best writerslike it closes off their potential. When I look at like my writing when I was like six or seven, it didn’t make anysense. But I was like experimenting and playing with sentence structures,doing doing things like that were wrong, say, but they wereexploratory and good. And as you get older, you can imposeform and structure on it and takes more time to get there. But I think there’s aby getting them you can’t expect them to at that age to have that form andstructure and it also doesn’t tell you anything about their writingability long term. It’s the same with everything, isn’t it? There’s more it’s it’s like when you’reyoung, you have like loads of different paths and loads of different things you can do and lots of potential and thenyou narrow you experiment, you learn, then you narrow down. Yeah. It’s the same process.Mhm. As as that really or anything that you’re trying to do, experiment,fail, experiment, fail, experiment, fail, and then Yeah. learn. And also, I think if a child’s writinganything at that age, that’s always a good thing. Is it a good thing to to celebrate no matter what?Yeah. It’s it’s like I do think spelling should be taught. that is so as inbecause English spelling is so complicated I think it’s actually something thatthey do need to you know write down and repeat and it’s it is this it is alaborious process they do that butyeah but I think during they sort of Ibelieve that they started experimenting with having it completely phonetic for abrief period of time. Um, and then they realized it didn’t really work.So, because English isn’t so phonetic, it helps you read quickly. So, phonics,I think, is good for reading, but in terms of the writing, it actually justgets some spelling things wrong. Just to finish off, I’ve had I’ve had a thought that I didn’t really think about

Language shift

when we were planning this episode. What are your thoughts onhow people talk nowadays and traditional English spellingwith the number of like the number of like uh new random bits of slang thatpop up all the time and memes and you know purposely misspelling things for them to be funnier and does thatthat surely confuses seveny olds. It probably does, but English is a complexlanguage. But the thing, you know, the word okay was originally a like a slang word from 1800 orsomething. Yeah. It developed into what into one of the most commonly used words ever. There’s actually Did you know thatsoccer is actually British English? No, didn’t know that. Like it startedout as they you’d have to call it association football or soccer and thenbut now Americans call it soccer and then we went with football.So football makes more sense than what they play. It does. So language does change. It’s justpart of the development. Development. Yeah. Butit’s like things that fall out of favor like the M dash which I they’ve gone full circle. absolutelybrilliant form of punctuation that’s been ruined by AI because it’s everywhere. Um, and people don’t like things thatare everywhere. I think slang slang’s always existed. It’s it’s just part partof language. Um, but there’s every everybody should be aware of informal speech and formalspeech. But do you know I think they’re getting a bit merged. It’s like what smartcasual now is not what smart casual was like 40 years ago, for example. It’s a similar sort ofconcept and and sentence structures are the most confusing things that I’ve because we weuse fewer and they’re less complicated now than they were in the past. Um, I’venoticed that students, especially in the say GCSE courses, if they’ve got a really old passage,they actually struggle to understand it because yeah, because they talk differently now. It’s solike people say, I mean, where did you go? Oh, yeah. I went Turkey.You’re missing out a word. So, can I can I go toilet? No. Again, you’re missing out a word. It’s it’s it’s not the sameanymore. And I think that is partly what’s making writing worse alongside everything else we’ve spoken about. So Iknow we again we spoke about it last year to wrap up. I think I probably know your answer. Do you think it’s stillimportant? Do you think writing specifically creative writing outside of after school um when you’reolder? And is it is it still important? Should everybody do it?Yes. because it’ll help you think better and that’s really that’s kind of the key

Why writing still matters

if I think Jordan Peterson has said that writing is thinking and I definitelyexperienced that when I was at university there’d be some topic like the crusades orsomething like something complicated and then after writing a paper on it or something like that I’d understand indepth I’ I’d get could get better at it. And I think the way that I speak as wellhas improved as a result of writing. Yeah, I’d say for for me, I would neverI never enjoyed writing tasks at school. Um especially when I when I werefiction, even at uni, my my course was all coursework,all all design, all creative practical tasks. I had one writing task a year andmy dissertation was like one and a half thousand words. It wasn’t what you guys did. Um but yeah, I think the writing isthinking thing is what made me write.Um the only time I write is journaling blogs or writing content and copy forthe business. Yeah. and then you realize there’s value. So, thanks again for joining us for our

Outro & Christmas teaser

50th episode. If you’ve been with us for quite a long time, thank you for staying with us. And if you’ve just joined us,welcome. So, next month is our Christmas episode, and we’re going to welcome back Andrew. Now, if you saw last year’sChristmas episode on Elf, you might know what this film is going to be. I’m not going to tell you now. You can stickaround and find out. It’s going to be a cracker. Yep.If you’re watching us on YouTube, don’t forget to like and subscribe and leave a comment down below on what you thought about this conversation. And if you arelistening to us on Apple or Spotify, don’t forget to give us a follow and a rating. And we’ll see you next month forthe Christmas episode,The Education Lounge Podcast.