“Live Writing” & Nurturing the Freedom to Make Abstract Connections

By Alexandra O’Sullivan

When people ask me what I do and I tell them I’m a teacher, their faces often brighten for follow up question, ‘What do you teach?’ then quickly twist into humorous disgust to exclaim, ‘Oh, I hated English!’

Some days just walking into my classroom to face the ever-present hatred, not of me, but of the subject I happen to love, is uniquely discouraging.

In my first year of teaching, I handed out reader’s notebooks filled with lined paper for the students to fi...