For some time I’ve been wanting to set up a blog dedicated to my creative writing ideas/resources to share for free. I was prompted to do so a few days ago because of the instruction that children of key workers at the time of this coronavirus outbreak would continue to attend schools and they would therefore need to be taught/entertained/occupied and so on. I’d like to think creative writing could and would be an ‘entertaining’ way to engage, and the ideas/resources could also be used for parents/carers at home tasked with the same commitment.

I’m not so sure the attendance at schools [I know it is only the first week] has been that significant or steady for teachers to be needing and/or planning for activities? This will, I’m sure, vary from area to area, rural to urban and so on.

So I am seeing my continuance with this blog more as was always the intention: collecting together and sharing creative writing resources already produced over many years both as a teacher and as someone continuing to write for teachers. I will eventually be adding new ideas/resources.

At the moment, the initial ‘thread’ of ideas is presenting work I have produced over many years for the UK’s annual National Poetry Day. I have started with these as they tend to contain ready-made and extensive detail, including teacher/guidance notes, student/writer notes, models and templates and so on. I have amended here and there and added new images/logos to update and make a little more presentable than when some of the early ones first appeared!

The title Copycatter has come quite simply from my own experience of working with students and providing them with creative writing models of/for writing to copy. These are structures/styles,  and List Poems are a touchstone-model for students to ‘copy’ as a process but also platform for generating creative, repeating ideas.

The blog is here: this will take you to Home, and the resources are in the Blog. If you scroll to the bottom of the Home page you can Follow the blog and receive emails whenever there is a new post. Please pass on details to anyone you think may be interested.