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Writing has always been easy to me. I was a creative child who loved drama, literature, and imaginary play. Later, I spent my 20's and early 30's writing professionally for first a large insurance company, and then a hospital. While "corporate writer" doesn’t sound particularly creative, there were many opportunities to hone my craft. Human interest stories kept my gift for creativity alive, and I was surrounded by other writers who were willing and able to edit my work. I learned to write an attention-grabbing lead, to find the humanity in any story, to use powerful descriptions and metaphor, and to always write using active verbs. Most of what we’ve been reading in Fletcher (2013) and Newkirk (2014) validated what I learned during those years. I can still recall my first story coming back to me, festooned with red circles around passive verbs with the accompanying note, “Make it active.”

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Quite honestly, teaching has made me a sloppy writer. Let’s face it; we teachers can sometimes sound like bureaucrats, especially when engaged in writing curriculum using state or national standards as guides. For example:

CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.W.5.2.D
Use precise language and domain-specific vocabulary to inform about or explain the topic.

What?? Yes, I understand what it means, but all of these standards could be written with improved clarity, in other words, in everyday English.
Some graduate professors encourage “academic writing” that purposefully eliminates voice (see sample below). Although I still write for fun, my writing is not nearly as “fit” as it was during those early days in corporate communications.

This course has awakened much of that “old writer” within me. Newkirk (2014) reminds us that humans are primed for stories. We seek out narrative in both fiction and non-fiction alike. The same rules apply to writing an informational or persuasive piece as they do for writing a short story. We must keep our readers interested and engaged.

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Similarly, the theories behind the chapters and articles we’ve read throughout this course have helped me to see my students’ writing differently. Until now, I was quite focused on cleaning up conventions and preparing students to meet the rigors that lie ahead. I worked hard to help them write thesis statements, to provide and cite textual evidence, to draw conclusions, to compare and contrast different modes of literature.

I should not have been surprised that some of the best writing my students have done for me could be found in the creative assignments. The memoir, the personal narrative, the poetry assignments often demonstrated delightfully descriptive and sensory language, strong voice, and keen insight. I would start my year with the memoir poem, followed by the narrative, and think, “Hey, these kids can write!” Then the poorly-organized research papers came in with run-on sentences, bad spelling, and poor grammar. They would hit me square in the face and break the spell. “I don’t know what I am doing,” I would think to myself. Sure, a handful of top students could convert their creativity to the non-fiction assignments. The majority, however, turned in work that was painful to read and probably, painful to write.

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So where do I go from here? I stand at the entry to a new path armed with the writing of Elbow (2000), Newkirk (2014), Murray (1978), and Fletcher (2013), and a host of new ideas about creating a writing community and allowing students to feel their brilliance (Elbow, 2000), while still needing to prepare students for the formatted academic papers that lie ahead. Here are some specific strategies I am seeking to employ immediately (these are included in my ideas for my final project).

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·         Based on Elbow (2000, p. 351) one thing I am planning to try is giving all students plenty of high stakes and low stakes assignments to encourage them to open up and improve their fluency, and to help them develop their voices.

·         I will respond orally when conferencing with my writers (Graves, 2004, p. 91) giving my students approval of what they did well (p. 91), and personal, one-on-one feedback. I have become too reliant on Google Docs for helping students revise.

·         Based on Newkirk (2014), I plan to encourage my students to write information texts in a more narrative style, sharing their voice and using different techniques for building suspense and excitement. I think I can do this by bringing mentor texts into my lessons more often and discussing with the class why some of these texts “work.”

·          I will focus on one problem at a time when giving feedback to students (Elbow, 2000). I will also be more specific in my comments. Instead of “awk” try I might try “I didn’t understand what you were trying to say.”

·         To create a writing community (Elbow, 2000) I have already begun implementing some strategies:

o   I have added gallery walks for friendly feedback.

o   Students have been sharing more of their short works for the group.

o   We’ve also been working more with Padlet and Linoit so students can comment on each other’s writing and responses.

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Improvement is a process of reflection and growth...

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Improvement is a process of reflection and growth...

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I mean to take on this journey one step at a time. Through reflection and hard work, I believe I can create a writing community and instill a love of writing in my students while continuing to prepare them for the future.