How did you learn to write?

 

How did you learn to write? Do you remember? I don't. I remember practicing my handwriting but not actually learning to write. In fact, I don't think we had anything like they do now for writing. I don't remember the never ending paragraph writing trying to figure out a theme or a tone, or having to pick out if a paragraph was an argumentative or informative one. I cannot imagine how bored our students are when they are required to do this. 

Can they write? Not given the parameters that are expected of them. I have no idea where these ideas came from, but our students are struggling. Can they write? Of course. Give them some parameters which make sense to them. 

The photo at the top of the page is of some little fairy tale books which were written by my 7th and 8th grade reading students a couple of years ago. They all begin with "Once Upon a Time" and end with "Happily Ever After". I wrote a grant to have them printed, 5x5 size on slick paper. The students thought up all the concepts and were going to take them to the elementary school to read to the little students. 

From enchanted crystals to an ogre who loves chicken nuggets, they were creative and thoughtful and I was so very proud of them. We got the idea from a novel we were reading at the time where the main character used fairy tales in describing her life. This was not from a computer program they were on several days a week which did not help them in my opinion. 

This photo was used in class one day when I asked the students to tell this child's story. Where was she at and why was she lugging the teddy bear. You would not believe how creative the students were and the stories they came up with. No one had ever allowed them to think for themselves and tell the story. 

I watched a whole class of budding journalists try and figure out how to put this on a page to use as a background on our school newspaper. The articles were written by a senior and the designer wanted to highlight the page, since it is color but was struggling because no one had ever let them decide what they wanted to do. When I invited the rest of the class over to help her out, explaining it was their newspaper and they each had an opinion for style, they were so surprised and then discussed for the whole class period how to best make these stories pop. The student designer told me at the end of class she would take this class for her whole high school career because she had never been allowed to express herself and not be told what she could and could not do or invite other students to discuss what worked or did not work. 

The writing that had the most impact on me and convinced me that telling the story was the most important thing you could do was a poem I was exposed to during my senior year of high school with Mrs. Thelma McCann. She had us chose a poem or reading from a select group of authors and then illustrate the work the best way we knew how. The poem was Merry-Go-Round by Langston Hughes and the class was Black Literature. 

Where is the Jim Crow section
On this merry-go-round,
Mister, cause I want to ride?
Down South where I come from
White and colored
Can't sit side by side.
Down South on the train
There's a Jim Crow car.
On the bus we're put in the back—
But there ain't no back
To a merry-go-round!
Where's the horse
For a kid that's black?

If you do a search on this poem, someone will explain the theme and break the whole poem down for you. How the merry go round goes from injustice to justice, perhaps the complexity of racism and the simplicity of equality? To me, it told a sad story that should not happen. Thank goodness I didn't have to explain it the way students must today. I also received an A and have never forgotten the poem. 

Reading stories that students can understand and relate to, even stories written decades ago helps create writers. Developing vocabulary which students struggle with develops writers. Allowing students to use their minds to develop their own ideas and creations helps develop writers. Reading out loud develops readers. Computer programs and never ending paragraphs don't.