Incubating Magic, Mystery and the Macabre: An Author's View of His Writing Process

Abstract

This chapter seeks to reveal on-going research which ‘responsively evaluated’ the Social Model of Writing through the lens of a published author. When first coming into print, the Social Model of Literacy in general, and the Social Model of Writing in particular, became an accepted component of the Australian tertiary pre-service teacher sector. However, in the six years since its acceptance, the model has not been updated or reviewed. As stated this aim of this chapter is to unpack new foci based on research evidence. Hence, through a series of semi-structured interviews with an author grounded in a more current ‘context of culture’ several elements related to the praxes of teaching writing in classrooms emerged. We believe that these include the concept of social-emotional learning, collaborative reflection and habitus. The emergence of social-emotional learning relates to the ideals of ownership of writing intertextuality and the awareness of the ‘other’ and others in quality texts. While habitus was a component of the initial design, it has become clear that habitus is not a peripheral cognitive component but a core emotional mindfulness. It is not only related to the patterns of thinking that arise out of deep familial connectivity but that these patterns have the potentiality to be related to aesthetic, critical reflection and ‘projection of understanding’.