Why I Write

I tend to ignore brief time periods devoted to something that should be deeply woven into the fabric of life and learning—as if observing Black History Month, Spiritual Life Emphasis Week, or World Thinking Day absolves me from thinking about the topic for the other 11 months, 51 weeks, or 364 days of the year. When I realized that October 20 was National Day on Writing, with the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) using the hashtag #WhyIWrite, my first thought was to ignore it. 

However, as I continued to see the hashtag, the thought occurred to me that I have blogged frequently about reasons for reading, but only a handful of times about reasons for writing—and mostly it was specifically about writing this blog. So thanks to some prodding from NCTE and the National Day on Writing for bringing this blindspot to light. Isn’t that, after all, what dedicated time periods are for? (Getting real here—I never object to my husband celebrating Valentine’s Day or my children Mother’s Day.)

As an English language arts teacher, it’s my job to value writing. But why? Why should anyone else value it? Do I actually use it in “real life”? Yes. I write many times every day for personal and professional reasons, to explore what I’m thinking and to share it with others, to transact information and to build relationships. 

So here’s the question: Why do I write?

1. To excavate what I think and feel and believe
2. To capture, consider, and internalize powerful writing and thinking
3. To reflect on my teaching practice and life (and hold myself accountable to practice and notice things worthy of reflection)
4. To articulate my thinking in concise, effective ways
5. To connect with others and build community: sharing, modeling, encouraging, inquiring, inviting
6. To remember: shopping lists, calendar items, project plans
7. To transact information: from what is my insurance coverage to why didn't my package arrive on time
8. To embody the identity I want to induct my students into: writer. If writing is vitally important to me personally and professionally, if I am routinely grappling with the issues and wielding the tools of a writer, and if I can articulate and model these—the importance of writing and the practices of writers—that changes everything in the teaching of writing. 

 

I realize that a lot of that list is abstract. Concretely, what does writing look like for me? What do I write?

1. Journals: Powerful quotes, beautiful words, thinking through a problem, strong emotion, or puzzling response (see blogs on gratitude and death) 
2. Blogs: Accountability for myself to reflective teaching practice, connect with like-minded peers, curate my thinking 
3. Emails: Too many to elucidate them all, from sibling news to school to insurance inquiries
4. Social media posts: Twitter, for me, is entirely professional networking—I comment on a resource I’m sharing or retweeting or participate in a Twitter chat. On Facebook, on the other hand, I write both personal and professional posts, on my timeline and in private groups.
5. Goodreads reviews: to connect with friends and model for students.
6. Proposals: for curriculum, schoolwide initiatives like sustained silent reading, professional development credits
7. Recommendations: college recommendations for students, job recommendations for colleagues
8. Letters: yes, actual ink on paper, put into an envelope, and depending on the distance, stamped and mailed (birthday cards, congratulations, thank yous, appreciation, sympathy)
9. Plans and materials: for students (class lessons) and for colleagues (professional development meetings)
10. Reports: like accreditation
11. Responses to student work: their writing, reflection, questions—both electronically and on hard copies
12. Poetry: not as frequently at this point in my life as at others, but, yes, sometimes (see here and here)

I don’t value writing because I’m an English teacher—I’m an English teacher because I value writing. Because of my job and passion, I probably write a little more than the average person. Still, for anyone, writing can enrich the inner life, facilitate the professional life, and strengthen the social life. Some of your reasons and specifics may be the same as mine, and some will be different. What and why do you write?

Playing with Language

“Do you want to read a book?” 

“No, I want to crayon.” 

“Oh, you want to color?” What made my 3-year-old grandson turn that noun into a verb? He knows “draw” and “color.” Ah…but then, there is “paint,” which can be noun or verb! I’m constantly in awe of the brain playing with and learning language—whether it is small children or high schoolers, whether it’s a first language or a second language. When I’m with my grandson, I wonder what it would be like if 10th graders could feel the freedom to experiment that he has.

For example, he reproduces phrases he’s heard that sound fun or heavy with emotional content, even though his meaning is very approximate. A few weeks ago it was the sentence “It’s been shut down for years.” The original context seems to have come from a cartoon where there was an undersea station that had been abandoned for a while. My grandson began applying it to any forgotten and unused thing—a toy behind the couch, a diaper under the sink.  

Sometimes he does ask about a word. Sometimes when he does ask, it isn’t a new word. I wonder what makes him realize that this word he’s heard hundreds of times…he now wants a more exact understanding of it. For instance, recently I was reading him a Berenstein Bears book—he has a big stack which he has been through many times. Suddenly, one day, he stopped me in the middle of one and said, “Grandma, what is a cub?” 

Yesterday I was reading him Ferdinand the Bull, a children's book I remember having around our house when I was growing up. I read to him about the other little bull calves who enjoyed butting heads, and before I even turned the page he informed me, “But Ferdinand wanted to sit under his favorite cork tree and smell the flowers!” The line awoke some familiar echoes in me. I turned the page and looked at the ink drawing I had completely forgotten about: a beautifully gnarled old tree with bunches of corks hanging from the branches like grapes from a vine. I smiled at the joke, but then noticed my grandson carefully studying the drawing, absorbing it as the truth of the world. 

“Do you know what a cork tree is?” 

“No.” A quick glance around the house—no bottle corks, no bulletin boards…. I attempted an explanation, which he listened to patiently, solemnly punctuating with, “Oh.” I’m sure he’s still clueless. Still, I had to try.

With all the language we learn, there are bound to be misconceptions we only uncover much later--how cork really grows will probably be one of his. My younger daughter informed me recently that as she was singing a lullaby to her 1-year-old, it suddenly struck her that a bushel and a peck were both dry measures. She’d always skipped over “bushel” and thought of “peck” as a kiss, like “a peck on the cheek—especially since it is immediately followed by “and a hug around the neck.” 

Still, experimentation is the way forward. Like the way my grandson combined the scariest phrases from all the stories he could think of to express the dire fate of one of the animal figurines we were playing with:

3-yr-old: The giant got him.
Me: Oh, no! What's going to happen to him?
3-yr-old: Fee-fi-fo-fum, fall down, inside the giant, smashed, dead, slaves of the Egyptians! 

He has a limited vocabulary, he uses wrong verb tenses and pronoun case, but he can definitely get his point across! Isn’t language complex and mysterious and wonderful? The way we learn it, and the way communication happens. May we all be as creative and passionate and tenacious as this 3-year-old…and encourage our students to as well! 

Watching 2 Master Teachers "Fit It All In"

180 Days: Two Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents by Kelly Gallagher & Penny Kittle (p. 87)

I will definitely be re-reading this book so chock full of meaty ideas and examples for teaching secondary English language arts: research, theory, stories, and examples of teacher and student work, planning charts, mentor text lists, and lessons. However, I won’t be re-reading it until I’ve finished watching all of the 43 videos included—videos from 30 seconds to 40 minutes long of the 2 master teachers who wrote the book and their students doing the things described in the book—book talks, mini-lessons, book clubs, reading and writing conferences, and writing beside mentor texts, to name just a few that I’m finding really helpful.
 
As a secondary English teacher, I have been a fan of both Kelly Gallagher and Penny Kittle since I discovered their books about the art and craft of teaching secondary English language arts about 7 years ago, so a collaboration of the 2 was really exciting to me. As always, there was plenty of good specific ideas to support reading/writing workshop. And what a privilege to get to see these 2 experienced teachers at work, sharing their planning, process, successes, and slip-ups as they planned and then executed a year of teaching in their 2 classrooms on opposite coasts of the US. That these 2, with 31 years of experience each, continue to develop their teaching inspires me to keep trying new things myself.

Some of the things 180 Days: Two Teachers and the Quest to Engage and Empower Adolescents helped me think about include how to have students do more reading and more writing; how to more consistently use mentor texts, mini-lessons, and quick writing; and how to conduct even better writing conferences. New practices I want to try include book clubs, a writer's notebook, and a multigenre research project. 

This book originated in response to the perennial English teacher question, “How do you fit it all in?” I started asking that question the day I walked into my first classroom 30+ years ago and to find a stack of 6th grade books: spelling, vocabulary, grammar, writing, literature anthology, plus several novels. And I had 45 minutes for 180 days, minus field trips, assemblies, testing, weather cancellations, and more to get it all in. Given how many times the authors had been asked this question, they decided to sit down together to hash out exactly what the “all” is they’re committed to fitting in, and what doing that would look like. The book is divided into 2 parts: planning decisions (start with beliefs, establish daily practices, map a year of reading, map a year of writing, and balancing feedback and evaluations) and teaching essential discourses (narrative, informational, argument, and multigenre research projects).

Here’s a list of planning beliefs that resonated with me from the beginning (85-93):

1. Start with the finish line in mind (What exactly do I want my students to be and do by the end of the year? )
2. Plan the teaching that threads through every unit
3. Plan to change your plans
4. Plan to reteach
5. Plan to study your teaching

Numbers 1 and 2 I know, love, and work on. Numbers 3-5 articulated things that I do sort of on the sly, feeling like if I were really a good teacher, I wouldn't have to do them. To have them listed out there by some of my teaching heroes made me feel legit—yes! this is not only okay to do, but a best practice for growing myself and helping my students grow!

I am really looking forward to the opportunity to incorporate Gallagher and Kittle’s “finish line” vision into mine, to use that vision to refine the teaching that threads through all my units, then as I teach, to change my plans, reteach, and study my teaching. 

But first I have to finish watching all those videos.

Cultivating the Next Generation

No, I didn't cultivate this kale, but I wanted a strong visual!

“Mom, you want to come to the store with me to look at phone accessories?” A refusal was on the tip of my tongue—I wasn’t in the least interested in phone accessories, and there was this stack of grading to do. Fortunately before I could get that answer out, my better angel inserted another thought into my brain: “Wait—your 13-year-old daughter just invited her mother to spend time with her. Who cares what the ostensible reason is! Accept!” 

In the intervening 16 years I've remembered that moment as the one that crystalized my understanding that when I value people, when I’m truly interested in them, I choose to spend time with them on their terms. What I’ve also learned since then is that even if the activity or topic itself is not intrinsically interesting to me, if I am truly interested in that person, I will be curious about what they do, what they get out of it, what intrigues or gratifies or delights them and why it does.

My kids are no longer adolescents, but as I continue to teach adolescents, I continue to be intrigued by these burgeoning image bearers of God that enter my classroom, by their world that is becoming more and more different from mine, and by the challenge of understanding them and their world—both to connect them to significant content area knowledge, skills, and understandings and to just help them on their way to fulfilling all the potential God has given them to live wise, compassionate, joyful lives. I recently read a book that compiled a lot of what I’ve read and learned on this topic in a helpful, clear way, with plenty of support and examples—Cultivate: Forming the Emerging Generation through Life-on-Life Mentoring by Jeff Myers. I found the information useful for either specific one-on-one mentoring, or the broader but still significant relationships between a teacher and her class. I especially appreciated the positive approach (every generation is different, each with its own blind spots and strengths) and the abundance of practical examples of questions and conversations.




The first of 3 parts focuses on the background: that relationship fosters growth, characteristics of the emerging generation, and how to build mentoring relationships. I especially appreciated the summary of research establishing the importance of relationship to learning: Students’ sense of being liked, respected, valued, cared for, accepted, and nurtured by a teacher is significantly associated with students’ motivation, engaging emotionally, cognitively, and behaviorally in class; internalizing the teachers’ goals and values; and expecting success (30-31). The way to establish that relationship across a generation gap is to seek to meaningfully share the different life experiences that each generation has. “People committed to understanding seek to listen well and ask questions” (42). 

As I said, one of the things I appreciated was the many specific examples of questions and conversations. For example, in identifying 12 distinctives of the emerging generation, with pitfalls and strengths for each, the author also gives examples of ways to explore each. The first distinctive is comfort with complexity and ambiguity as opposed to right answers and the bottom line. The author urges the mentor to: 

[A]void overly simplistic answers or suggestions. Acknowledge ambiguities and complexities that are real, and be humble about what you don’t understand or can’t explain. Invite a conversation about mystery in the following ways:

• "Let’s talk about what we can know and what we can’t know. Why do you think we have uncertainty in some areas? What are some things you are certain of?" /
• "One of the great things about a life of faith is that it is adventurous—it is a mystery. What are some things about your faith that you can’t wrap your mind around? What are some mysteries of your faith?"
• "Sometimes life just doesn’t add up. Are there experiences or things you’ve been through that just don’t make sense to you? What about them feels contradictory to what you would expect?"

Responding to a difficult issue can be tricky with the emerging generation. Here are some suggestions on how to respond clearly without ever-simplifying complex issues:

• "Your question is a tough one and I don’t want to brush it off with a simplistic answer. Can you give me some time to think it over and get back to you?"
• "Here’s what I think, but this isn’t an issue I would take a bullet over."
• "I’ve spent a lot of tie thinking about that myself. Let me tell you some of the thoughts I had along the way, and what I ultimately ended up concluding." (43-44) 

While discussing 6 components of mentoring (modeling, friendship, advising, coaching, teaching, and sponsoring), Myer puts coaching front and center—briefly described as “listening and asking powerful questions to support someone’s success” (68). He devotes chapter 4 to coaching, and it’s an excellent introduction or a concise refresher, including things like 6 types of unhelpful questions, 3 coaching skills, 5 conversation-altering words (“Tell me more about that” [84]), 6 other things to do when you aren’t asking questions (85). All of these things are helpful in teaching as well.

The middle section covers 3 important areas of flourishing to address: “What is the purpose of my life?”, “What is true?”, and “What difference do I make?” (89). Myers devotes an entire chapter to each, and as an English teacher, I use each of these questions as essential questions in my courses, so these chapters are full of helpful resources, questions, topics, conversations, approaches. The final section contains practical how-tos from getting started to safety standards to monitoring your own spiritual growth. As a teacher, this was the least helpful part, but it would be essential for anyone wanting to mentor young people outside of a well-equipped institutional setting.

This book will definitely stay on my shelf as a source of questions, conversations, and resources for significant explorations of the concerns that crowd my classroom, and I would recommend it to anyone who wants to further their ability to connect with young people in significant ways. The life experiences of my students are somewhat different from mine, but that difference doesn’t have to be scary or alienating—with true curiosity, wise questions, and good listening, it can be the catalyst for conversations that we all learn from!

P.S. Two additional resources for connecting with young people: 
(1) “The Danger of Teacher Nostalgia” on Cult of Pedagogy (especially for teachers)
(2) “The Culture Translator” by Axis (for anyone wanting to develop a relationship with young people and curious about the very foreign world they seem to inhabit—parents, grandparents, teachers, youth pastors, or others). A free weekly newsletter highlights 3 current hot topics in teen culture, gives a brief explanation with links for further exploration, and suggests questions for talking about it with kids. For example, this week’s (Oct. 4, 2019) addresses a rising TikTok teen influencer, the movie Joker, and Justin Beiber’s church wedding.