The Write Stuff

Maybe it’s my older years of a whole quarter of a century that I cannot remember anything.  It could also be the fact I have 110 thoughts passing through my head at any given moment.  I am going to say that it is the later; I have too many thoughts and a good one may just get lost in the sea and not come to the surface for days.  Well that’s usually when I don’t have a pen and paper or in modern day cases my cell phone handy.  Often the greatest inspiration for my writing would come on my walks home from work.  I had 20 blocks between me and my office where I would walk and think to clear my head from my dead end job.  Often on those frigid walks home was when the inspiration for my next posting would come from.  I honestly have no idea what sparked the creative juices to start flowing but there was no stopping them.  To dam the ideas up, I would whip out the trusty old Blackberry.  As I walked I would furiously type away whatever I thought sounded good.  I am surprised I was never hit by a taxi.  Ok we get it, I am a writer and this is an education blog so guess what comes next: The connection to the classroom and the students. 

Inspiration for writing does not come from sitting at a desk with a paper and pencil on your desk.  It comes from the lives we lead and the inspirations we pass.  I doubt those cold desks are inspiring the next great American novel.  When it comes out let’s ask the author what his or her inspiration came from.  I bet you $20 it was not sitting at his desk looking at a blank word document.  I find it comical the fact that writing this post is taking the most effort and staring at a blank screen.  I know what I want to write, but just could not string the words together.  Oh the irony!  Yes there will be writing instruction in my classroom, lots of it, but I want to teach my students the purpose and inspiration for writing.  An excellent tool to enable this is the writer’s notebook or pad.  If students are equipped with a note pad and pencil wherever they go they can write down their ideas when they strike.  It eliminates that deep thought process of what was I thinking about when I had that stupendous idea.  That stupendous idea is already written down and when the student sits down for writer’s workshop h/she knows exactly where to begin.  They have an idea.  They do not know where this idea will take them.  Could it end up being a mystery?  Or will it be a poem?  Will it be a mysterious poem?  The writing process of prewriting, writing and revising will lend itself to how the actual piece develops.

Coming up with the idea is often the hardest part of free writing.  We as teachers must “help students to see and value the precious particles in their lives not by giving lectures and assignments, but by demonstrating this quality of attentiveness in our own lives” (Calkins, 1994).  When students are aware of their surroundings they can draw on their experiences and create excellent writing.  Ever talk to a published writer?  Ask them who their main character’s inspiration is.  Nine times out of ten they will say there is a big part of me (the author) in the character.  Over the course of my semester, I have had the privilege of listening to talented writers speak about their body of work.  Every single one of them mentioned themselves were in their books in one capacity or another.  We need to show our students that our lives are worth being written about, that our stories are the next tall tales to be told.  We as teachers must inspire our students to draw with their pencil.  But we need to put that pencil in their hand and convey to our students that inspiration may strike at a moment’s notice.  Stop and get it down on paper because great things will come flowing out of that pen.  The writer’s notebook is the first step in that process.

Once we start writing there seems to be a wall we hit.  That wall is not lack of ideas, but in reality lack of confidence.  I remember in high school, Mr. Shortliffe had us break with tradition and write exploratory essays.  Instead of ending the last sentence of our first paragraph with our thesis we just wrote our thoughts until they ended with our thesis.  He prefaced this assignment or couple of papers with the fact that if it is in our head just write it down and the thesis will just naturally develop.  This may have been the hardest* assignment of 10^th grade, more so than reading Ibsen (really Ibsen in May, students are checked out in May and give them A Doll’s House and they are already in the Catskills singing camp songs).  It was hard because as students we are traditionally told to write it down if it only has meaning or significance.  The art of revision was never really a part of the process.  Resistance to writing comes from lack of confidence and this assignment wanted to just explore.  This serves as inspiration for how I want to create a writing environment in my classroom.  I want to remove all resistance so the words just flow.  I want my students to just try and get their ideas on paper.  It may be a drawing of how their story should progress, it could be a bunch of squiggles that one day will form words or it may be a spoke wheel with what the author wants to include in their piece of writing.  This writing needs to be celebrated along its journey.  Encouragement and positive feedback will keep the writing wheel greased.  Once the practice stops it’s hard to pick up where it left off.  It needs to be a constant occurrence.  There really are no excuses.  I see in my own writing, the more I do it the better it becomes and the more ideas I have swirling around in my head.  If I see this why not show it to my students.  They will understand this and they will be writing themselves to the top. 

*Like I told my practicum students, “Hard work pays off.”  As you can tell from my posts, I tend to write in a more exploratory style.  So thank you Mr. Shortliffe, you have challenged me since 8^th grade.  There would be no Chef Steph without you, there would be no RPPQD! without you, there would be no urine, tinkle, piss without you. 

Dear Jon

Last month I visited the bestie in the ATL who maybe the smartest person I know (hands down).  Let’s just say he’s got the credentials to back up my very subjective opinion.  I mean he is studying to be a doctor at an amazing school, after getting his master’s in public health, which he matriculated into after graduating from a top 20 university (Go Dores!).  Did I mention he’s tri-lingual? So BAM!  I learn so much from him that I am always taken aback when he asks me an intellectual question.  I expect the fashion questions, you should have seen this boys wardrobe B.S. (Before Stephanie, get that mind out of the gutter), or why New York is the greatest city in the world (sadly he still does not get that one), but something that is a cerebral question will come out of left field.   We were sitting in the car (you do that in the wonderful traffic that regularly graces Atlanta) chatting and one thing led to another.  I can’t exactly remember how the question was phrased but Jon asked me how do you teach students to read and write?  Well little did he know how loaded that question was.  Since we were confined in the car with nowhere to go I started talking, and talking and talking.  Remember, I can be a tad verbose?

Before I even delved into “how” to teach reading and writing I explained to him that we have spent the better part of 13+ years of our lives learning how to master the art of reading, writing, arithmetic, critical thinking to the point of where we as adults do not think about how we can do something, but just do it.  Now imagine you had to take everything you do without hesitation and break it down.  From that broken down point you then have to teach someone how to do it as naturally as you and I do it.  That is a heavy duty task that has some major implications on one’s success.  He basically responded with “Um, yeah, that’s a whole lotta responsibility.”  Tell me about it!

At this point in my education and teaching career I was just over the hump of the halfway point in the semester (my 1^st semester).  I told him that I am  by no means the Dali Lama of teaching students how to read and write, but what I have read, what I have learned in class and what I have seen in practicum has influenced my opinions on how I will approach teaching reading and writing in the near future.  I told him that the goal of a teacher is to create lifelong readers and writers (hey blog title! Hey!) where those activities do not feel like tasks but rather “play” time.  I introduced Jon to the ideas and concepts of Reader’s and Writer’s workshop and how they were excellent tools to foster growth as well as love of literature (Calkins, 1994; Calkins 2001).  I explained that for both reading and writing this is an opportunity for students to explore their interests through literature with guidance from the teacher.  Students will begin gathered together for instruction.  When I teach reading and writing I will start with a prompt (mini lesson) that helps the students focus.  For example, I may want to show my students the importance of asking questions while independently reading (comprehension strategy for those who don’t know).  To stimulate understanding I told Jon the teacher may model by doing a read aloud (I thought he would get from the context that a read aloud is when a book is read aloud, but I scaffolded and explained what that was) with her class.  At points of intrigue in the book, I would have my class volunteer questions they may have about the book.  It could be any old question from why does the main character have red hair or why is he going down that dark alley.  The only stupid question is the question that does not get answered.  Then after this quick lesson the students would all disperse and independently read their varied texts.  [Side note: I told Jon that it is über, ÜBER important to have as many books on as many subjects in the classroom.  There needs to be a book to fit any student’s interests and in this case quantity is quality.]  The students would make themselves comfortable in their nooks.  I explained that I have seen some kids in the funniest positions, but as long as they were engrossed in their book I did not care they were curled up in a ball on top of their desk.  During this time, they are to read, but remember to ask questions.  I would probably give my students a post it pads for them to write their questions down as they arise. They stick it on the page and continue reading until the next question arises.  Also during this time, I would have the opportunity to work with my guided reading group to have more focused attention on a smaller, homogeneous group of students.  (He picked up on that one that I would be working with a small group of kids on about the same reading level to give them more individualized attention).  After time has passed we re-congregate and review and share what happened during their independent reading. 

That was just reading.  I reassured him that writing followed a similar structure.  I told him ideally we would just let kids write; however don’t you remember in grade school when your teacher said write? Chances are there was a beautiful, crisp white sheet of paper staring you in the face.  So to avoid the white page syndrome, teachers may want to use a prompt to guide students writing.  Often times, limitation breeds creativity.  With just the tiniest of confines, a student can create magical, wonderful, compelling, literature with their own words.  I explained to Jon how I loved the writer’s process and how I naturally use it in my own writing.  I mean if I see the validity in prewriting, drafting, revising, editing and publishing as a writer, outside academia, of course I want to show my students how to write like a real life writer (aka their favorite teacher) (Tompkins, 2005).

Jon and I on vacay in Florida

So I know Jon asked me how and I have no mention of phonological awareness or grammar lessons etc. from our conversation, but I feel the structure of how reading and writing is taught is just as important about the skills being acquired.  The mini lesson at the beginning is used to help our students better hone their skills from comprehension to the correct use of punctuation.  Practicing those skills are just as important as learning them.  Like an athlete we lose our strength if we do not keep training.  Or maybe I went off on that tangent because I have been placed in upper elementary grades for practicum and have not witnessed firsthand the actual teaching of reading and writing foundations (well that’s a lie, my mom is a pediatric OT and I have been in her office my whole life observing, but that was well before my true passion for education bit me).  This is one piece to the huge puzzle that completes a student’s literacy education.