For love of the word: English teaching, affect and writing

Research in the UK, USA and Australia confirms that secondary English practising and pre-service teachers are typically characterised as great readers. Indeed the subject position of English teacher entails a ‘love’ of reading (Peel, R., Patterson, A. & Gerlach (Eds), 2000). However there is no corollary with writing. Few English teachers are simultaneously ‘writers’ in any sustained, pleasurable or publicly successful ways. This paper examines data gathered from pre-service secondary English teachers and from experienced teachers who are also writers about their own writing practices and experiences and looks at the relationship between these issues of affect and pedagogy. Embodied and positive affects—characterised as ‘love’, ‘passion’ and ‘immersion’ in writing—are prominent features of the stories told by accomplished writers. Love of ‘the word’, including a love of reading, and a productive tension between form and freedom, are further threads in the discursive textures of their stories of coming to writing.