Amra Pajalic

Running a writing workshop is like being on a boat in the middle of the sea. Sometimes you think you’re doing fine and land is in sight, other times the waves are rocking your boat and you’re battling to stay afloat, and sometimes you get hit by a wave and you don’t know if you’ll tip out or stay in.

I’ve been told that the time of day greatly influences teaching outcomes and boy is that true. My Monday morning group, period 1 and 2, have been the easier to handle and more dedicated group, whereas the Thursday group, period 5 and 6, who are students selected in the accelerated English class have been a bit unruly, and hard to motivate. It seems as if all their energy has been used up during the day and they’re kind of floppy and over it all.

After some struggle to get them thinking ideas in the end I just had to set writing time and got them to write down something, anything because they were like unruly eels with ideas undulating and slipping through their hands. We did a writing exercise to get ideas flowing and one of the ideas was to think of mean things someone did to you. A student mentioned a parent yelling, which became a mean mother.

I told the story about when my mother and I didn’t get along when I was an adolescent. My Mum always went on about how when she was young she had men fawning over her because she had no other achievements to brag about. Because of the struggles in her life she didn’t have a career etc. So when I became a teenager and blossomed she was resentful and we had a rocky relationship. After our discussion about parents being mean and mean teachers I went around to read individual writing.

A student wrote about a young girl having a loving mother when she was a small child and then her mother changes, becomes full of rage and yells at her all the time. In the story the young girl comes home from school all happy only to have her mother go at her and bring her down. The girl runs away, but she has nowhere to go and ends up coming back. While I’m critiquing the story she begins crying and I realise this a real story.

I waited it out, giving her time to deal with her emotions. A student brought tissues and another one hugged her. I talked about how writing is hard because it bring up all sorts of emotions. That sometimes it can help, sometimes it makes you feel worse. That if it makes it easier to write she can make the character someone outside of herself, give her a different name, different family. Or she can think about the reader and how this story might help someone else because we’ve all been betrayed by an adult. I told her I was proud of her for being brave to share her story, that it’s not easy to be so honest.

She asked me how did I forgive my mother. I told her it took time, that a lot of things happened between then and now and it’s a journey, and sometimes forgiveness isn’t about the other person, it’s about you being able to move on. And then I hoped. I hoped I told her the right things, that I gave her what she needed in that moment and that I didn’t royally stuff up.

When she left I checked in with Jo and told her what happened and sought advice. She said I said everything I could have in that moment and that she’d check in with the student and follow up. I asked her if I should change the writing exercise, but she said no, maybe this student needed this to work through this experience.

When I was preparing for this residency about writing from personal experiences I wanted real stories, stories that touched people and meant something. I did not foresee the dangerous minefield this could become because to write something real is to open yourself, to share your soul. It makes me realise the responsibility I have to these students to give them a safe environment to share and to give them the emotional support they need. It’s very scary and humbling. I just hope this is a positive experience for this student.

Some other things that happened:

• Had a talk with Jo and The Good Daughter will never be used as a class set because of the swearing and adult content. Bumb. I won’t change my writing style, but I will evaluate whether there is need for swearing etc in my book. I feel like TGD was full of my suppressed rage, it was about purging myself of my shitty adolescence and that now it would be a different book. I’ve seen how my writing style has changed and what I’m writing about with this second book.
• I was chatting again to a VCE student who is not sure about his future directions. We were talking about Australian politics and got onto asylum seekers. He was repeating the media mantra: can’t assimilate, we can’t support them because they’re bringing us down. I told him about the profile I was doing and two of the women were from Lebanese background. When her parents first came to Australia they moved to a suburb where their population was because they had no language skills. Over the years as their children went to school they learnt the language through them and assimilated. I told him it’s a process. It’s not something that happens overnight, but this is a story we’re being told by the media and politicians to cover up xenophobia. I told him about my degree and how doing a major in politics changed my life. I learnt to look at the world critically and began thinking about what do I really want to write, how do I want to impact the world.

All up it was a challenging and stimulating day. Until next time.

I’ve got that quote from My Fair Lady in my head: ‘By George I think she’s got it.’ Had a huge breakthrough in today’s class. I asked the students to read what they wrote last week. Then we read a short story from the 1000 Pencils anthology and discussed short story elements by using it as an example.

Then it was writing time. I asked that the students decide on an idea for a short story because we would be using class time to work on it this for our next two workshops. Cassandra said she was inspired by Jenny Dowling’s Before I Die and wanted to write a short story about an accident. I asked if she knew of anyone who had been in an accident. She shook her head. So we began talking about family members who died, how did they die and stories about them.

Cassandra then remembered her grandmother passing while her Mum was young. Her mother didn’t want to to go school and while she was away her mother passed. The floodgates opened and everyone settled on a short story idea. I set 20 minutes for them to write. After 20 minutes I checked if they wanted to keep writing or have a discussion. They chose to keep writing. All up they wrote for 35 minutes and then we had a 10 minute discussion with each student reading out some of their work and talking about their story. There were only five students today (3 didn’t show up).

The way we’ve structured the workshops is that a group of 8 students get three workshops with me. That’s why this first group has been so important because it’s all about tweaking my lesson plan so that I can improve for the next group.

Lessons learnt:

• Use writing activity as an ice-breaker to get into the workshopping frame of mind.
• Get students to read a short story in class and discuss short story elements using it as an example.
• Give students the opportunity to use the class time for writing time. Let them lead how much they want to write.
• Workshop ideas by talking about personal experiences relating to a certain theme.

Next week I’ll be setting more writing time and going around to read each student’s work and have a discussion. Then they will have a week to type up their story and submit it for critiquing. Very excited to read their efforts.

Yesterday was the most challenging day yet. I spent the whole day at the school.

At recess I met with a student and did some more workshopping.

Then I photocopied handouts for the next session.

Wrote a personal essay about how my guidance counsellor Mr Kortuem helped me become a writer. I might post it next week after it appears in the newsletter.

During lunchtime had a chat with a student. He’s really smart, but scattered and doesn’t apply himself enough. Had a far-reaching philosophical discussion spanning feminism, socialism, capitalism, hurdles facing women in the workplace, and the need to do something challening in order to build confidence.

Then I had a session with my students and we did a workshop. The kids were fabulous, but there was a problem with the room booking so we were in the middle of the library and there was lots of noise so I had to work really hard to keep their attention.

Lessons learnt:

• Advice from Jo: ‘Never admit you’re wrong.’ I let the students last week have a free rein with their creativity and they started doing vampire, zombie etc stories. What we’re trying to get out of them is stories representing the Western suburbs, so I’m going to have to rein them in next week. Jo said, just move forward, don’t acknowledge any mistakes because it unsettles the students.
• My plan was to read two stories from the 1000 Pencils Anthology, but I realised that it really drags down the energy when we do reading so I’m breaking it up and each week I’ll read one short story to keep them on track as to what we’re trying to achieve.
• I thought that each week I’d do a different writing activity so they had options to develop a short story. Have realised that I have to use class time to get them to write so will instead be focussing on get them to choose one idea and developing it from beginning to end during the three workshops we have.
• I have to be firm with the students. Yesterday there was a student who was great in coming up with ideas, but ended up kind of taking over the class so I had to take control of the session and get her to knuckle down during quiet time.
• I have to write down all the ideas we come up with on the whiteboard so I can use them for future sessions.
• Need to use class time for the students to write their stories rather than expect they’ll take it home and write.

I came home yesterday completely exhausted. Still feeling slightly hung over from it all, but it was also fun. Til next week.

• Sought out printing quotes to produce book for the community project I’m developing with Brimbank Council-What a Muslim Woman Looks Like. Getting back into the headspace of the project I began working on one of the women’s profiles and remembered why I’m so excited about this project. Firstly, it’s a chance to do some creative non-fiction, a new frontier for me and challenge myself. Secondly, I’m working on this project voluntarily and it makes me feel so good that I’m giving back to the community in some small way.
• Washed my heating ducts. Had this idea that we’ve been so sick because the germs are mutating in the heating duct. Got disappointed because there’s no way to clean the hoses connected to the heater so I’ve opened the door to get some fresh air in the house at least.
• Researched Graduate Diploma in Education (Secondary) and have decided on two universities that I’ll apply to. Had a scare where I thought I didn’t have enough subjects to meet the teaching methodology criteria, but thankfully I’m all sorted there.
• Googled the anthology I’m in Wordlines by Five Mile Press selected by Hilary McPhee (features the first chapter of The Good Daughter) and found this interview on ABC radio. Listened to the interview between Hilary and Ramona Koval while preparing pumpkin, leek and potato soup. Fascinating to hear her perspective about how Australian writing has changed. She mentioned the dark ages of 10 years ago when the Demedenko affair happened and Australia’s obsession with transgressional ethnic fiction and how things have changed. She came back from living overseas in Italy and the Middle East and it was interesting to hear about how we are perceived internationally-the two books that made a splash was Norma Khoury’s fake memoir in the Middle East and The Secret in Italy. She was talking about the Australian voice which is political and how there is no set Australian identity which I loved. Also she mentioned me and my book. Was chuffed to hear that.

The plan for the rest of the day:

• Eat lunch
• Work more on profile
• Pick up my daughter from childcare
• Buy flour-couldn’t make pancakes yesterday because I ran out of flour. Was so bummed because I was all set to eat strawberry pancakes so tonight’s dinner is soup and pancakes for desert. Yum.
• Mum’s coming over so will chill for a few hours.
• When husband comes home from work will serve a lovely dinner and then we’ll plant ourselves in front of the television for The Office marathon. We’re on Season 3 and I spend most of the time watching it with my fingers digging into hubby’s arm at Michael’s excruciating antics because even though I know it’s all acting he comes across as so real I feel embarrassed for him.

Monday mornings I was mentoring the students in period 1 and 2. The day began with teething problems-literally. Sofia woke up screaming in pain from teething. Slowed me right down because she kept following me and crying while I quietly went out of my mind stressing-why today of all days. Eventually had to put her on the boob until the pain relief kicked in.

When I arrived in class we were a bit disorganised because I didn’t have time to touch base with the Project Coordinator-Jo beforehand. We set up in the breakout room and I gave the students hand outs about the project and talked them through it. We were running behind so I jumped straight to the writing exercise.

We did some workshopping of the exercise on the whiteboard, then the students had five minutes to pick one of each of the items-person, place, food, and to develop a scenario for a short story. Went around the table and had students share their ideas. With 10 minutes left we had a quick discussion about how they would approach writing their short story.

During recess I sat in the library to be available for students to talk to me. A student in the Literary Lunch group approached me to workshop the short story I read the week before. Her story is a gothic romance that’s very evocative in setting the mood, but she was concerned there wasn’t enough of a plot.

We workshopped a plot with me leading her through to develop further characterisation and then the plot. She decided the best way to introduce the plot was by interspersing fully developed flashbacks and therefore she’d still retain the creepy sense of atmosphere she created in her draft.

Spent an hour talking with Jo about how to improve on the lesson for Thursday’s class. I let the students lead the class with their creativity and they developed some fantastical scenarios. The purpose of the project is to develop an anthology on Insider Stories to the Western Suburbs so I need to take control more and get them to focus on realistic scenarios.

Lesson plan for Thursday’s class:

• Collect student names (very handy to call on them)
• Give out handouts and do quick recap of project
• Read five pages from The Good Daughter to set up the writing scenario and discuss aim of project
• Read two short stories from 1000 Pencils anthology which was developed as an Artists in School project with Kinglake school and artist Neil Grant. Discuss elements of a successful short story.
• Undertake writing activity, taking greater control and focussing more on realistic genre.

Lessons learnt:

• Have to toughen up in my role as Mum and not indulge bub as much on mornings when I have work. The fact is she loves childcare and is very comfortable there so I have to trust that if she is unsettled they can settle her. This is going to be the toughest ask of all.
• Develop a lesson plan for each class and allocate time to each activity to keep on track.
• Direct students more in writing activities and not let them go off on creative tangents.
• Draw a diagram of classroom and write student names so I can call on them.

While there were some teething problems I had a great time with the students. I found it an amazing experience to interact with young people and hear what they had to say and I’m learning so much.

I’ve always wanted to be a teacher and this is really awakening this dormant dream so I’m undertaking some research and I might study next year.

Looking forward to Thursday and putting into practice lessons learnt.

This week I began by Artist in School residence at my former high school St Albans Secondary College. I’m working with year 9 students to develop an anthology of their writing.

It’s been a long time coming-I got funding approval in December last year and I was really excited about the project. Unfortunately on my first day, Monday, my odyssey of crappy health continued and I had a throat and ear infection.

This first week I was doing a talk and then giving the kids an activity to help them plot a short story. On Monday I got through the talk, my legs trembling and dull eyes desperately searching for a patch of carpet to prostrate myself. While the kids were doing the activity I stayed at the other end of the room, sitting down by myself, generally feeling awful.

As soon as the session finished I went to the doctor and got antibiotics. Yesterday I was feeling a bit better. I did the talk and I spent the rest of the session floating around from table to table, talking to the kids, helping them plan the activity, answering writing questions. The best part was I had fun. It was great to talk to young people and hear their perspective, and there were some amazing ideas.

The activity I gave them was to imagine an object of significance being lost for some reason and then they have to get it back. Some of the ideas they came up with:

• A gold toilet paper holder made from gold in goldfields. The owner realises it’s stolen because the replacement is dull in shine and they try to track down the owner. I think this one was almost a joke, but I ran with the original item and in the end we workshopped an interesting story.
• A slayer discovers a fridge full of blood and realises he’s in the house of vampires.
• A family frame that is supernatural and transports you to a time in your family ends up getting stolen.
• War medals are sold by mistake at a garage sale.

I also met with the kids who take part in the Literary Lunch run by the librarian Jo every Thursday where kids from different year levels get together to talk books and workshop story ideas. I read a student’s story that was like a gothic romance and her writing style was amazing. Such a rich vocabulary and she created a creepy, strong sense of atmosphere.

Next week I’m working with smaller groups of 8 kids. We’ve structured the workshops so each group has 3 weeks so they don’t miss out on too much of the curriculum. I’m really looking forward to the smaller groups and seeing how the activities I’ve devised will be interpreted.

Some things I was surprised by:

• The vastness of young people’s imagination. Some of the stories were completely unexpected and sounded really exciting.
• How much I enjoyed engaging with the young boys, especially the ones who were smart arses and were trying to stump me with ideas.
• How much fun it was to get out of the house and interact with people. I’ve been out of the workforce since I was 7 months pregnant. This year I have a grant to work on my second book, but I’ve been feeling this invisible clock ticking until I go back to work. I’ve been dreading it, but this experience has reminded me about the benefits.

Can’t wait for next week.