To Fire up Students to Write
Personally, I believe writing comes from the heart. I believe that writing makes one vulnerable, as it forces one to reveal their thoughts and preserve them in paper or pixel. Often what follows with thoughts are emotion, for emotion informs and influences thought. Yet because of this, the best writing is writing informed by thought and emotion, for we as humans are emotional creatures and thus best understand each other through our thoughts and feelings. Therefore, how do we teach students to reign in the fire that are their emotions and create pieces that are meaningful to them?
As Christensen suggests, and as I've come to believe, "teaching students to write with power and passion means first immersing them in curriculum that matters, getting them fired up about the content so that they care about their writing," because "when students write for the teacher instead of writing out of a compelling need to speak out, the writing is often tedious, not worth writing, and not worth reading (132, 123). As a student, I've found that my best writing comes from pieces I was emotionally invested in because to me, the writing did not serve to satisfy course and grade requirements (though that is a side-effect), it was a part of me that I was rendering to a page. As a pre-service teacher, I have discovered that for many other students, this is true. In my observations at various schools, the kids who are most invested in their writing are the ones who care about the topic matter and are emotionally invested in. Reflecting on this, no wonder this seems to be true. Who the hell wants to write because they have to? People should write because they want to. Zinn did not write his groundbreaking People's History of the United States because he didn't want and feel a strong desire to communicate his knowledge of the American experience, nor did Morrison write her timeless novels because she felt her literature wouldn't give voice to the plight of African Americans. People produce the best writing because they want to communicate an idea, emotion, thought, or consideration, and for some, this desire becomes necessity. But first comes the desire to write before the necessity to write.
Thereby, we as educators should instill a desire to write in our students rather than impose the necessity thereof. In technical terms, yes, we as humans write more than we ever have in history because of the digital age, so it is necessary to learn to write. But it necessary by way of survival, not of desire. If we can shift the mindset of necessity to write to the desire to write, then we as educators have not only done our job, we have provided our students with the ability to promote themselves and their interests to the world. If we can teach this, with or without scaffolds such as Christensen's train analogy on pg. 123 or as communicated through the I Say/They Say templates, then we have provided a spark that can ignite a student's ambitious fire than can potentially light the world.
As Christensen suggests, and as I've come to believe, "teaching students to write with power and passion means first immersing them in curriculum that matters, getting them fired up about the content so that they care about their writing," because "when students write for the teacher instead of writing out of a compelling need to speak out, the writing is often tedious, not worth writing, and not worth reading (132, 123). As a student, I've found that my best writing comes from pieces I was emotionally invested in because to me, the writing did not serve to satisfy course and grade requirements (though that is a side-effect), it was a part of me that I was rendering to a page. As a pre-service teacher, I have discovered that for many other students, this is true. In my observations at various schools, the kids who are most invested in their writing are the ones who care about the topic matter and are emotionally invested in. Reflecting on this, no wonder this seems to be true. Who the hell wants to write because they have to? People should write because they want to. Zinn did not write his groundbreaking People's History of the United States because he didn't want and feel a strong desire to communicate his knowledge of the American experience, nor did Morrison write her timeless novels because she felt her literature wouldn't give voice to the plight of African Americans. People produce the best writing because they want to communicate an idea, emotion, thought, or consideration, and for some, this desire becomes necessity. But first comes the desire to write before the necessity to write.
Thereby, we as educators should instill a desire to write in our students rather than impose the necessity thereof. In technical terms, yes, we as humans write more than we ever have in history because of the digital age, so it is necessary to learn to write. But it necessary by way of survival, not of desire. If we can shift the mindset of necessity to write to the desire to write, then we as educators have not only done our job, we have provided our students with the ability to promote themselves and their interests to the world. If we can teach this, with or without scaffolds such as Christensen's train analogy on pg. 123 or as communicated through the I Say/They Say templates, then we have provided a spark that can ignite a student's ambitious fire than can potentially light the world.
You mention that writing makes one vulnerable, something I very much agree with, however, I feel a lot of students will avoid putting their emotions into works as they don't want to be seen as vulnerable by their peers. For a lot of students, especially in high school or middle school, often times being vulnerable is not how you want to be seen. Kids can be ruthless and mean, and if they see weakness they will attack. I was discussing this with a few friends the other day and how they were afraid to write a lot of assignments, especially when they knew they would have to share them with some of their peers. Do you think that if we were to eliminate processes such as peer reviews and read arounds, students would create better writings, as they would no longer fear being seen as vulnerable?
ReplyDelete