Learning the write way

The pupils of one secondary school are cleaning up in writing competitions, writes JANE TOLERTON.

Why does Epsom Girls Grammar do so well in writing contests?

The short answer is that it runs a writing course. The longer answer is that by learning to focus on writing and doing it regularly - writing journals, notebooks of story ingredients, folios of stories - students develop the skills. So when there's a competition, they're ready.

Susan Johnston's Katherine Mansfield Young Writers Award win is icing on the cake - that award being the most challenging, according to Rosalind Ali, the teacher who runs the writing course.

But the cake was already large and sweet before the announcement this week. An Epsom student won the same award the time before last. Another, Chloe Gordon, won last year's Sunday Star-Times competition.

Of the 50 students in the Tandem Press short-short story collection, 50 Short Short Stories by Young New Zealanders, five were Epsom girls, several of them highly commended in the competition.

In this year's Ireland Essay Competition, Epsom students won first, second and highly commended places. In the past two years they've been runners-up.

"I don't really know how we teach people to write," says Ali, "other than giving them lots of materials, talking through the possibilities and doing a lot of small exercises to flex and build confidence.

"It helps students to focus and develop their voice - and develop their work in a coherent form."

The scope is wide. Students might write song lyrics or the opening chapter of a novel as well as a short story. And there is an emphasis on reading widely as well.

The Year 11 (fifth form) course is an option and next year will be fitted into the unit standards system. While School Certificate has been in place, taking the course has involved a certain amount of sacrifice - five school cert subjects plus writing may not sound as good as six school cert subjects.

This year the name of the course changed from Creative Writing to Writing for Publication to counter parental concerns that it might be "just fluffy poetry" rather than something useful.

That's a concern for students, too. "Students want skills they can see have application," says Ali.

But the ways in which they can use their course portfolio are already evident. One girl used hers to get into Bill Manhire's Victoria University course, and others have used them in applications for communications and media training courses.

The fifth form is not the ideal stage to run a writing course, Ali says. "My preference would be sixth or seventh form because the students are older, and have more to write about."

But once started, students like Johnston tend to keep going - and with their journals and portfolios, have something to keep going with. "And they keep in touch, even when I don't teach them any more."

The school runs its own prose and poetry competitions at every level each year - and interesting one-offs such as last year's text message poetry competition.

"Competitions provide additional incentive," says Ali. "The Katherine Mansfield is the most challenging."

Johnston's True Colours will be the title story in a collection of the best of the Katherine Mansfield Awards Young Writers entries. The stories for the book, which will be published by New House Publishers, are being chosen at the moment, but among the 36 being considered are half a dozen from one school - Epsom Girls Grammar.

Johnston had to write an essay one night to hand in next day. She could also write a short story if she wanted to - to enter in the Young Writers section of the Katherine Mansfield Memorial Awards.

"You have to be in to win," she told herself. And she got down to producing her winning story and the essay, all in one night, before leaving for a family holiday in Europe next day.

Because she took the optional fifth-form course in creative writing at Epsom Girls Grammar last year, she was armed with the material she needed for her story.

"I went through my journal and found lots of little bits, and picked the ones that would go in.

"I didn't know how to structure it, because I've only written a few short stories, but I wanted to do it like Mark Strand's poem, Morning, Noon and Night. But I decided I didn't have time to do it all, so I just did morning and afternoon."

The result, titled True Colours, is a keyhole sketch of family life - based on her own family, which consists of Mum, Dad and 19-year-old sister Katie. She didn't show it to them before sending it off.

"They've read it now. My sister says she feels stereotyped. The other day I bit my tongue badly. She said, 'Why can't you write about that, instead of about me?"' says Johnston, with the same sort of light touch that made her story a winner.

Johnston took the creative writing option because she'd realised she wasn't enjoying science subjects any more, had her five school certificate subjects sorted, "and thought I might as well do something I'm interested in".

While "how to write" sessions in ordinary English classes failed to capture the imagination ("we had a few periods about writing, but everyone just talked in those"), the creative writing course succeeded for the 20 girls in the class. "Everyone really enjoyed it. It gave us such a wide base."

Now in the sixth form, Johnston doesn't have definite career plans, but thinks she'll probably do a BA degree first, and maybe go into journalism later.

Judge Jack Lasenby said True Colours stood out because its author "had that detached attitude that could lead to real irony, that Katherine Mansfield had at her best and that, at genius level, became Jane Austen. Jane Austen looked at her family with eagle eyes. This writer is looking at her family and herself with that same distance."

Johnston's prize is $1000, plus $500 for her school.

Sarah's story



Border:

Head1: True Colours


Head2: Sarah's story


Body1: W HEN we ask Mum if we have to hang the washing out or if we have to go to the rest home to see our Great-Gran, she says "Is the Pope Catholic?" which we soon learnt means "Yes". Pretty soon, we learnt that "Does a brown bear shit in the woods?" also meant "yes". And this is how it goes, "ask a silly question ... " Dad would say.

So when Mum tells Katie and I that she is having a barbecue with some people from work tonight and Katie asks if we have to be there; Mum asks her if the inside of a cow is dark. Not her best work but we get the point.

Dad walks in on this conversation on his way back in from taking out the wheelie bin. He is dissecting the paper into relevant (sport, business) and irrelevant (news, world, weather) sections. My father is a safety adviser and just like Homer Simpson, he'd like to sit round in his underwear, drinking beer and watching rugby all day. People at his office call him Safety Gav, which we thought was pretty lame until he installed the 13th smoke alarm. He used to work down the Huntly West Mine and then the East when the West blew up. He was promoted and promoted until he didn't have to work down the mines and Katie and I finally outgrew our "I dig coal" T-shirts.

Mum, who is sewing up the hem on Katie's new denim skirt, is rattling off a guest list through a mouthful of pins. Dad begins to count people on one hand then is forced to put down the paper to accommodate their offspring on the other hand. "That's it!" he declares, "I've run out of fingers."

But Mum is still going; "Adam has a stag do, but Natalie will bring ... what's her baby's name ... I was going to say Hamish but it's not, it's Angus isn't it?"

"She's your friend."

Dad thinks Mum is too hospitable; "You had all the ruddy neighbours over last week. And the rugby! It's Hurricanes-Highlanders tonight and they both need to win to stay in the top four!"

Katie, who has agreed to put in an appearance at the barbecue so that Mum will sew up her hem, takes Mum's side to ensure its evenness, "I'm sorry Dad, were you mistaking us for family who give a damn?" She is going through a phase of saying "I-don't-give-a-damn-dot-com," which gets right up Dad's nose. "Who am I going to watch the game with?" he whinges, "None of those doctors are going to watch a Super Twelve without their precious Blues in it." Dad grew up in Lower Hutt and despite living in Auckland for the past 10 years, rejects the Blues and insists that his loyalties lie with Wellington.

I walk in from the laundry and add another load of clean washing to the heap on Nanny's antique wicker chair in the sunroom. Mum changes the subject by commenting on the extraordinary amount of socks Katie and I seem to have acquired. We remind her that she had to work right up until Christmas last year and left the Christmas shopping to Dad - socks was the furthest he was able to venture into the lingerie department.

The phone rings, sending Katie on a frantic hunt. Mum can't comprehend why we don't just hang it up after we've used it but she doesn't share the amusement Dad and I get from watching Katie dash in and out of rooms, each urgent ring teasing her. I continue a search of my own for a holeless pair of school stockings and Katie finds the perpetrator wedged between the piano and a stack of overdue library books. "Katie here ... " she gasps, trying to regain some composure as she is yet unsure which member of her social circle might be calling her at this hour of the morning.

It's Uncle Dave, ringing to see if Dad wants to go to a Paella class. There is an ulterior motive as the brothers conspire a fishing expedition for Saturday as a compromise for the unfortunate timing of the Paella class. When he gets off the phone and Mum asks him what that was all about, Dad says just another attempt by Aunty Denise to transform Dave into a sensitive-new-age-guy.

K ATIE has been learning self-defence at the university rec centre, so as soon as Dad has put down his bag, she's all "Grab me from behind" and Dad, who has been through this last night, wearily attempts to put his eldest daughter in a headlock. But Katie must rearrange his arm then swap it over so her strongest arm is free to attack and he must put his shoes back on so that she can practise her stomping. Pretty soon, Dad has had enough and heads to the fridge to get a beer.

Katie and I head out on to the deck. She positions herself so that the sun won't be in either of our eyes and begins to comb her shiny wet brown hair in long, slow strokes. I pick up Mum's large sewing scissors, move in front of her, perch on the table, and swing the umbrella around so that her whole head is lit. Mum arrives home from the supermarket 20 minutes later and suspects something sinister as the locks of hair begin to break up and are carried by the wind over to the neighbours. She yells at me to clean it up before people begin to arrive for the barbecue and recruits Dad to carry the groceries in.

Katie has already shut herself up in her room with the yellow QUIET! EXAMS sign she swiped from school last year so I sweep her hair off the deck and into the roses. Inside I can hear Mum and Dad having the private school debate again. It began two weeks ago when I came home from school and told my grandfather that Australia has eight states, represented by the eight stars on the Australian flag, as preached by the history teacher who claims to have got it from the geography teacher who, after all, should know. Dad grumbles on about how in his day, it was all theorems and elements. This from a man who sees my learning Gatsby for English as an excuse to dust off Louis Armstrong - Live in Paris, and conduct Charleston lessons on the kitchen floor. The conversation is ended by Mum realising that an anonymous sister has left the freezer open and again Dad is recruited to deal with it. He tries to strike a deal with Mum involving him watching the Hurricanes game and not having to talk to boring doctors in return for a frost-free freezer. Mum tells him for the third time today to stop his whinging and heads off to water the plants and find the offending daughter. Dad leaves the fan heater whirring in front of the freezer and turns the sports station up loud as a peaceful protest.

And so, as doctor number one ambles through the door, six-pack and rugrats in tow, Dad can faintly be heard from the back shower, belting out True Colours in an outa-tune kinda-way.