September 2026: 'Soul'

Bonus tidbits

This month's weekly prompt words are: Small, Eye, Custard, and .... 

Warm-Up Exercise: Critique

This month we warmed up with a short critiquing exercise. Three writing samples were provided, and the teams’ responses are summarised below. What would your critique be?

It became evident that, for anonymous pieces like these, suggestions for improvement are more prevalent than mentions of positive aspects. In-person feedback on pieces written on the spot rarely notes anything other than positive aspects. Whether this is entirely down to the brilliance of the writing, the bonhomie of the situation, or unwillingness to challenge or discourage may be up for debate.

Instructions:

1. Get into teams of two.

2. You have three minutes for each round.

3. At ‘Go’, read the first sample.

4. As a team, identify:

   • at least one aspect that could be improved

   • one aspect that works well.

5. Be specific. Where possible, identify the writing technique, part of speech, grammatical feature, or other element involved.

6. When the three minutes are up, each team will take a turn to give the group one improvement and one strength from its critique.

7. Repeat the process with the second and third samples.

Communications