It's no secret that I love to write. As a (primarily) Language Arts teacher, I feel it'd be somewhat disenchanting if I didn't. I'm fortunate enough to have chosen a career where it's my job to share what I love, day in and day out, with every student who sets foot into my classroom.
But it's not enough for me to simply love writing and expect my students to do the same. No; like everything else in education, a major part of the process is translating my enthusiasm for the material to the student. Some of this is incidental (I firmly believe that teachers who communicate energy and excitement for their subject are more engaging by nature), but much of this process must be carefully planned, plotted, and reformatted along the way.
My goal tonight is to outline what I believe to be are essential factors in building a culture of writing in any classroom. That's right: any classroom. You don't have to be a Language Arts teacher to provide opportunities for young writers to challenge themselves and show off their skills (just like you don't have to be a Math teacher to incorporate complex problem solving into your classroom). In fact, I'd argue there's more to be won (and much more ground to be covered) with increased interdisciplinary cooperation, but that's a topic for another time.
Well, without further ado, let's get started! This list is in no particular order (I don't think #1 is more valuable than #5, for example), but I do believe that all of these elements are most effective when implemented in harmony.
#1: Purpose
"Why are we doing this?" Every teacher has heard this question, in some form or another, at some point in their career. I, personally, asked this question a lot when I was a student (or rather, I thought it to myself a lot; I was pretty shy as a kid).
Sometimes I figured out the reason later on; other times, an answer never came and, even now as an adult, I occasionally ponder the point of why that subject was brought up or why we learned it in that way.
I'm not saying that this should never happen, and that it's necessarily always bad if and when it does (I look at those moments when I'm unsure of the "Why" as a place to reflect on why I, as the teacher, am pursuing this task this way). When instructing students to write, though, it's essential that you guide them to, rather than provide them with, their purpose for this assignment.
This is almost never easy. Some students may define their purpose as, "I want to get an A," or "I want to finish this assignment before the end of class so I don't have homework." Others may dive deeper into the prompt, thinking "I want to convince the reader to agree with me," or "I need to give background information on this subject." All of these are great places to start, but a lot of building a culture of writing involves being given the space (and support) to really, truly, and deeply reflect on what we've written (and why we've written it, and why we've written it that way, etc.).
You want to provide your students with the freedom to sort out for themselves why they write the way they write. You want to encourage them to come back to a piece of writing, to review it, grapple with it, and struggle with it. You don't want a system of "here's a prompt, type, submit, and get a grade." This is inherently very messy, and can be frustrating to both teachers and students. But that's what needs to happen. It is my belief that all writing exists to elicit an emotional response. The first step to building a culture of writing is pushing your writers to have an emotional response with their work, to connect and feel proud of what they've done.
After all, every piece of writing done is a product of its author. If the author can't tell you why their work exists, what was really accomplished by it?
#2: Authentic Audience
Why do Writers write? There're probably a million answers to this question, but one of the more basic ones would probably be: so other people will read what they've written.
Pretty on-the-nose, right? Yet, I've been guilty of forgetting this step in my own classroom time and time again. So many times I've had students work on a piece of writing (possibly over an extended period of time), only to have them turn in their "finished" work to me, an audience of one.
I'm embarrassed it took me as long as it did to figure this out, but: if you're asking your students to write for an audience (as so many of my writing tasks do), you should probably provide them with, you know, the audience.
This goes beyond peer editing or an everyone-in-this-class gallery walk (though those are great strategies too and should definitely be used). This could be a school-wide literary magazine, or a class blog (making sure to be discreet about student information, of course). It could be an in-school web series through Flipgrid, or sharing work with another class halfway around the world through initiatives like the Global Read Aloud.
The point is: someone, somewhere (beyond you and even beyond the other 19 kids you have in that class) should have the opportunity to read, critique, and comment on your students' work. Writing for an audience and seeing how that audience reacts to your work is too essential a component of the writing process to get scrapped. Obviously you need to maintain student privacy rights when sharing their work, and obviously you should only share work that a student is comfortable submitting, but making every student in your class always write for an audience of one is just avoiding coming up with a smart way to get the word out on the amazing things your students are creating.
#3: Praise Progress, Not Perfection
This one can be tricky.
No piece of writing is ever perfect. Everything can always be improved, and there's always something to work on as a writer. When you're a writer, there's never a ceiling of mastery that you're someday going to be in danger of hitting. When you're a writer, there's always room to grow, and that's beautiful.
But it can be frustrating. Especially when grading enters the picture.
Building a true culture of writing means stripping away the idea that we're all working towards that 100%. That mark that means that I got nothing wrong and I have nothing more to learn in this area.
To clarify, I'm not trying to disrespect grading; grades are great for monitoring progress, assessing understanding, and generally keeping track of where you're knocking it out of the park and where you maybe need to spend a little more time in the batting cages.
It's just that, in writing...well, kind of what I said before about there not being a writing mastery ceiling. Technically, no one is ever going to reach that 100%.
And, deep breath in, that's okay.
I'm not saying students shouldn't (and won't) earn 100% on certain writing assignments. There're times when a student's work's really gone above and beyond and they deserve to get a "perfect" score.
But a culture of writing kind of exists in this weirdly separate space from the world of grades. In a culture of writing, praise is presented for progress, not perfection.
Let me illustrate that point with an example. Recently, my 8th Grade class was working on a personal opinion essay connecting to our current core novel, Inside Out and Back Again. Students were given various resources: minilessons, teacher conferences, an essay planner, discussion groups, a peer editing triangle, etc. The essay was due on a Friday. That Saturday, I sat down to "grade" the essays. On Monday, I returned the essays to an eager class.
I returned the essays filled to the brim with comments, questions, and suggestions, but no grades. The following week was our "Process" time, during which students revisited their "finished" writing, examined their work through new lenses (like Writing Like Music, for example), and generally grew past what they'd thought had been good enough to turn in a week earlier.
The essays did receive grades by the way...but I wanted to delay that part of the process until the students had the chance to really go back and dig deep into their writing. For me, a grade signifies that something's done. That's all, we're moving on, let's go. And that's not a bad thing, but it can be limiting if employed too early in the writing process. And who's to say that two weeks is long enough for the process to really stick, either? To me, a culture of writing might be students working on side passion projects that take up a whole term. It may be writing that never gets formally graded (it may also not be). But there is one thing I feel is certain about a culture of writing: it cannot flourish if the aim is to be perfect rather than to show progress.
#4: All Writing is Equal
This point is short and sweet. There is no "best" form of writing. All writing, informative, creative, narrative, argumentative, etc. is equal in terms of validity. Just as there is no one "correct" way to produce art (and writing is art), there is no hierarchy of writing importance.
Students will inevitably be drawn more strongly to certain types of writing when compared to others; these preferences should be encouraged. Challenged too, at points, that's how anybody discovers something new, but when a student discovers something they're passionate about, everything remotely related to that interest will greatly benefit.
Say, for example, you have a student who is very interested in composing creative fiction. They always want to write stories, even when it's time to be writing an argument essay. Sounds frustrating, right?
It doesn't have to be. Because, the bottom line is that that student wants to write. And, in a place where writing is a praised part of the culture, that's all you need. Redirecting that student shouldn't be too hard, because they'll have been exposed to an environment where all writing is interconnected. Learning the tools of the trade when constructing an effective argument might have a bearing later on in a creative scene when two characters have a heated discussion. An argument essay might also be the perfect place to try out some new sentence variation techniques, see how playing with the length and flow of your sentences affects the overall efficacy of your point.
The "types" of writing are less like animals being separated into spaced out pens and more like the same water flowing through different parts of a river. Once a student finds that they like to write in one of these "types," it's only a matter of time before they come to appreciate them all.
#5: Have Fun With Style
I know I said it before (wrote it, actually) in this post, but I love writing. Where else can you create literally anything you can dream of, if only you have the tools and descriptive skills necessary to get it down on the blank screen?
My penultimate point is straightforward: give your students the time and the support to have fun with the style of their writing.
It's a common point of analysis in Language Arts classrooms: picking apart the author's voice. In my experience, often this concept is introduced by examining the work of other authors, which can be a great learning moment.
However, it occurs to me that it is equally important to provide the budding writers in our care with the opportunity to find their voice, to create their sense of style and explore all of the options out there for their own work. This piece seems to sometimes get lost in the shuffle, and it's not hard to see why: figuring out yourself, your voice, and why you do things the way you do is time-consuming and, frankly, a little all over the place. But so is writing in general.
I don't want to teach kids how to write perfect 5 word sentences, 7 to a paragraph, all uniform and indistinguishable from each other. Fortunately, I won't, because my students are inherently creative and unique and full of opinions. It's my job as their teacher (Language Arts or not) to encourage that creativity, that developing voice, not put up barriers to having it shine through.
Giving students the time, space, and safety to take creative risks, to trip and fall and reassess, to not be perfect on the first, second, or fifth time, and to always keep growing is what I believe a culture of writing should be.
#6: Readers Make the Best Writers
My last point is a personal one. Long before I found my own voice as a writer (and I'm still finding it, even today), I was an avid reader. I'm proud to say I still am, just as I'm proud to share some advice one of my teachers passed on once upon a time.
To be a good writer, you need to read. Constantly.
Reading exposes you to language. It illuminates new ideas and ways of thinking. It gets you familiar with word choice, and sentence structure, and grammar (and when to break grammar to make a point). Reading feeds into writing just like fuel makes a car go. Students need unfettered access to books, lots of them, new and old and in-between. And students need access to up-to-date informational articles. Students should be allowed (and encouraged) to read anything and everything they want, from comic books to classic novels to video games. Writing is an offshoot of reading; you're read to before you learn how to write.
If you want to build a culture of writing in your classroom or school, you must first have a culture of reading in place.
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