Visionary Writing
I want my students to see themselves as visionaries when they write.
What does that mean? It means not to worry so much about the technicalities and the processes by which their stories come together. It means not to fret over incessant revisions and the red ink pen corrections yet to come. It means not to worry about the number of drafts they feel they have to do.
It means they just realize they have something to write. They have a story to tell.
How they write it is not important - at least not yet. First, they must realize the truth that what they have to say is perfectly legitimate and credible, no more or less than any other student in the room with them.
But how to be a visionary? How to get beyond the jargon of the writing process and the rigid boundary lines that strangle students' words before they ever reach paper?
I shared a variety of my own writing samples with my students last year, mostly from my journal (as they kept their own journals and used them just about every day as part of their daily warm-up). I wanted to show them how I modeled being a writer, not so they could write just like me, but so they could actually see the strategies we discussed in class working. I used samples dating all the way back to the fifth grade (when I started the journal). All I wrote about in those days was snow chances during winter that closed school, going to the dentist, getting a haircut, favorite TV shows, and so on. Later, my entries got more serious; I'd talk about loneliness and 9/11 and graduating high school, etc.
But I told them that when I sat down with my journal and got set to write, I didn't pick up the pencil with some kind of formula in my head. I just got started writing whatever popped into my head. It might have been what I had for breakfast that day, or the first person I saw in the hallway at school or my favorite takeout restaurant of all time, or whatever. My topics were as ranged as theirs, and my focus wandered just as naturally as theirs did. The point was this: I had something to say, and my journal was the one place I could go to say it, or write it.
How I said it didn't matter so much to me. If I mispelled words, so what? At least they're on the page, not stuck up in my head. If I used improper grammar, so much the better! It's my voice, my journal, my thoughts, my rules. No one else could read it except for me, so there wasn't any pressure to make my writing conform to anyone else's standards. I realize that they see it as different when they write for grades in my class, but it's really not. I stressed to them again and again that they are not writing to get an A, a B or even a C. They're writing for themselves, not for me or anyone else. They're writing to improve. To practice. To express.
That was the hardest thing I faced this year: overcoming the laissez-faire attitude of my students toward the writing process. Looking back, I don't know that I really succeeded in doing it, but I tried. The best I can hope for is that I planted some seeds that will sprout once they move on to high school. It's still a high stakes, standardized testing environment that makes no bones about which view of education it favors. It's not one that is prepared to tolerate a quasi-experimental process of writing. And to be honest, some days, I have no answers for kids when they ask me why it doesn't match how the MAP, ITBS, or PACT will assess them. There, it's all about knowing the steps of the process, what each step entails and the precise order in which they proceed. None of that dovetails with what we do in class.
But some things aren't measured by tests. Character. Hope. Love. Beauty. Some things can't be contained by formulas. A loved one dying of cancer. A trip to Yellowstone National Park. The fictitious creation of a new soft drink.
A mere snippet of what authentic, project-driven writing can capture. At least when we can envision it.
What does that mean? It means not to worry so much about the technicalities and the processes by which their stories come together. It means not to fret over incessant revisions and the red ink pen corrections yet to come. It means not to worry about the number of drafts they feel they have to do.
It means they just realize they have something to write. They have a story to tell.
How they write it is not important - at least not yet. First, they must realize the truth that what they have to say is perfectly legitimate and credible, no more or less than any other student in the room with them.
But how to be a visionary? How to get beyond the jargon of the writing process and the rigid boundary lines that strangle students' words before they ever reach paper?
I shared a variety of my own writing samples with my students last year, mostly from my journal (as they kept their own journals and used them just about every day as part of their daily warm-up). I wanted to show them how I modeled being a writer, not so they could write just like me, but so they could actually see the strategies we discussed in class working. I used samples dating all the way back to the fifth grade (when I started the journal). All I wrote about in those days was snow chances during winter that closed school, going to the dentist, getting a haircut, favorite TV shows, and so on. Later, my entries got more serious; I'd talk about loneliness and 9/11 and graduating high school, etc.
But I told them that when I sat down with my journal and got set to write, I didn't pick up the pencil with some kind of formula in my head. I just got started writing whatever popped into my head. It might have been what I had for breakfast that day, or the first person I saw in the hallway at school or my favorite takeout restaurant of all time, or whatever. My topics were as ranged as theirs, and my focus wandered just as naturally as theirs did. The point was this: I had something to say, and my journal was the one place I could go to say it, or write it.
How I said it didn't matter so much to me. If I mispelled words, so what? At least they're on the page, not stuck up in my head. If I used improper grammar, so much the better! It's my voice, my journal, my thoughts, my rules. No one else could read it except for me, so there wasn't any pressure to make my writing conform to anyone else's standards. I realize that they see it as different when they write for grades in my class, but it's really not. I stressed to them again and again that they are not writing to get an A, a B or even a C. They're writing for themselves, not for me or anyone else. They're writing to improve. To practice. To express.
That was the hardest thing I faced this year: overcoming the laissez-faire attitude of my students toward the writing process. Looking back, I don't know that I really succeeded in doing it, but I tried. The best I can hope for is that I planted some seeds that will sprout once they move on to high school. It's still a high stakes, standardized testing environment that makes no bones about which view of education it favors. It's not one that is prepared to tolerate a quasi-experimental process of writing. And to be honest, some days, I have no answers for kids when they ask me why it doesn't match how the MAP, ITBS, or PACT will assess them. There, it's all about knowing the steps of the process, what each step entails and the precise order in which they proceed. None of that dovetails with what we do in class.
But some things aren't measured by tests. Character. Hope. Love. Beauty. Some things can't be contained by formulas. A loved one dying of cancer. A trip to Yellowstone National Park. The fictitious creation of a new soft drink.
A mere snippet of what authentic, project-driven writing can capture. At least when we can envision it.
posted by david @ 10:27 AM
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