Teacher to Teacher: Work in Progress
By Janice Ewing
I’ve been thinking about the phrase ‘work in progress’ lately, in a couple of ways. Being fortunate to find myself in the company of many teacher writers, through PAWLP, grad classes, and other networks, I often hear people comparing notes on their works in progress, or WIPs. I think it’s a great place to be in one’s writing. After all, it means that you’ve started something, or several somethings, but they’re still in progress, by definition, so there’s no expectation of completeness, perfection, or even ‘done for now.’ Instead, there is possibility – for improvement, expansion, compression, refinement, more or less of whatever is needed. There will be feedback along the way, some helpful, some not so much, triumphs, mistakes, epiphanies, and doubt. At a monthly writing group of PAWLPers, for example, we share children’s books, memoirs, science fiction, realistic fiction, and poetry. We learn so much from each other as we exercise our writing and critiquing muscles.
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