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Creative Writing Website Launch

Creative Writing Website Launch

Delight in Learning

"The English department has always tried to encourage and promote creative and discursive writing among pupils, building various opportunities for extended writing into teaching units at all levels, publicising writing competitions and awarding four writing prizes each year. In most cases, however, and especially since the school magazine was discontinued, excellent pieces of work are only seen by the pupil, class teacher, SQA marker and, sometimes, parents.

A couple of years ago, I found that my fourth years and fifth years were producing writing of exceptional quality and sophistication – some really exciting, original stuff. I was determined that it should be seen by a wider audience rather than simply disappearing into the vaults of the SQA, so I came up with the idea of launching this website, an idea that was enthusiastically supported by all other members of the department.

I worked on the content and design during the course of this year, with great help from Mr Harkins (Head of Computing) and Aaron Savage (an Advanced Higher Computing student) who built a prototype of the site for his Advanced Higher Computing project, and now it’s ready to launch and we’re delighted with the way it looks.

The pupils whose work has been included on the site have been very enthusiastic about it, and we hope that once the wider school community is aware of the site it will inspire other pupils to develop greater enthusiasm for creative writing and to attempt more ambitious pieces."

-Mr Young, Assistant Head of English

Below is an interview conducted with Aidan Murray of S6, whose personal essay ‘An Imaginary Family, written in S4, appears on the Lumen website:

In your opinion, is it important that pupils of the school are given the opportunity to try create some pieces of extended writing in each year of secondary school,  and if ‘yes’, can you explain why?

Yes, of course it's important! I would even go as far to say that it’s critical. Extended writing really gives people the chance to build and develop a world in which they can share their creativity and imagination with others. As time progresses throughout your school career, you become even more knowledgeable, so much so that your language has expanded along with the number of things you have experienced, allowing for a wider variety of imaginative pieces to be created. I think the more opportunities people are given to create different writing pieces, the more you will see that same person's personality shine through in their work and the more proud of their work they'll become.

Do you think that the existence of the Lumen website might inspire pupils of the school to be more enthusiastic about writing, or to appreciate more fully what can be achieved through writing, and if ‘yes’, can you explain why?

I personally have mixed feelings about this. I believe that the Lumen website can come across as more of a way to promote those who are at the top of their game in terms of writing rather than a way to get others inspired and involved. I think that its more down to the teachers and fellow pupils to really encourage people who may not be the best at writing to get involved more, whether that be creating competitions within each year group or some other method and using the Lumen website as one of the rewards along with something else. As for the appreciation aspect, I think that if pupils had the time to read some of the stories then they may actually appreciate the effort that has been put in to each and every one of them but I think that may come down to how interactive the website is.

Has reading the very positive comments of a professional novelist on your pieces changed how you look at your own writing, or how you feel about writing, in any way?

I have never felt as proud of my own work more than hearing positive comments from a professional novelist. Having someone who writes for a living compliment the work that I put so much time and effort into perfecting helped me to see that I actually did my ideas justice. It’s still quite a surreal feeling. 

Visit the website- http://www.lumenwriting.co.uk/