Writing=Student Expression

Let's face it; writing is hard! There are so many aspects to consider: correct grammar, sentence fluency, word choice, audience, not to mention the overall ideas expressed!  The question is, how do we keep our students motivated to write when the task often appears to be so daunting?
However, writing is so important to the process of education.  The written word is a medium through which ideas, cultures and people are expressed and represented.  I would like to turn to one of television's most inspiring educators, as he explains what education is.  (Mr. Feeny is the bomb!)
He mentions that education is more than just facts, it is about the absorption of thoughts, ideas and philosophies.  Writing is a vital asset to the expression of a student's overall education.

As I mentioned in my last post, I considered myself a writer at quite a young age.  In elementary school my friends and I would sit together on the playground with our journals and read each other's stories.  My sisters and I would write play scripts together and perform them in front of our parents.  In short, my interest in writing is grounded, largely, in the experiences that I had as young child.  Now, in the crazy life of a full time college student and a full time employee, my writing has taken a backseat. Occasionally I get the chance to update my personal blog, write in a journal or even write a poem, but not much more than that-aside from composing emails, texts and letters.  
The honest truth is that my students' lives may be just as busy.  The truth is that writing may not be the priority that it was for me at that age.  Personally, writing is how I prefer to express myself and my ideas.  My favorite writing assignments were argumentative papers that expressed my own analysis of literature.  Looking back, I liked these the most because I liked feeling like I had a voice that could eloquently express something I was passionate about.
I have never been a master of oral language.  I stumble over my words and become frustrated because I cannot express myself the way that I want to.  However, writing has always been a good way of communicating exactly what I want to.  I cannot count on the level of interest, similar to that which I had for the subject, to drive my students the same way that it did for me.  Chances are, many of them may prefer to express and communicate orally or through some other medium-such as art or music.  However, I believe that each student should display comprehension and understanding of basic writing skills.  Moreover, their interests and the things which they are passionate about, may not be literature; they may prefer to talk about cars, science, politics, sports, etc.  For this reason, I believe that having a feel for my students' interests and learning styles is important in structuring writing opportunities for them.

I also believe that students can get too caught up in the "correctness" of writing to the point where the ideas, content and expression become secondary.  For this reason, I think that providing students with opportunities to produce multiple drafts is vitally important.  Instead of having them focus on all the aspects of their writing all at once, which often only adds to the "daunting" feeling, they must first get their ideas on paper.  Once that is done, students should be invited to revisit their writing and critically analyze the way that they use language.

Connecting School to Home Experiences

As a child, my mother told me the story of Jane Eyre as a bedtime story.  Granted, she dumbed down it down quite a bit, but nonetheless, I enjoyed the story.  She did the same thing with many other classical novels.  What is more, I had seen film versions of many of these stories with my mother.    By the time that I encountered these stories later in my education, I knew and recognized them.   My acquaintance with classical literature early in my life sparked a personal interest in reading challenging books.  I wrote a lot too.  When we were younger, my sisters and I had our own newspaper.  We had the idea to do so after Mom told us the story of Little Women.  We wrote stories, articles and drew pictures for our newspaper.  I considered myself a writer at a young age and found writing as an effective outlet of expression. 

Experiences like these had a large part in shaping my personal approach to language arts.   In many ways, reading is listening and writing is speaking.  All language domains are the means of conversation and discussion.   One example of this two sided conversation is the newspaper that my sisters and I made, being inspired by the March sisters of Little Women.  We listen to the ideas expressed and responded by using writing to speak for ourselves. 

Chances are, my students will not have the same experiences that I did with my discipline.  However, I think that it would be fair to say that all students come to the classroom with unique funds of knowledge.  In the language arts classroom, part of this knowledge comes from the books that they have read or that they are most interested in.  For instance, I had a teacher in ninth grade who found out that I enjoyed reading classical novels.  She would ask me questions about what I was reading, if I liked it or not, and even gave me a few reading suggestions.  The fact that she took an interest in my reading habits encouraged and motivated me within the discipline of language arts.  She insisted that I had intellect to contribute and encouraged me to do so.

The best part about language arts is that student’s interests can be activated by theme, especially when that theme is connected to issues directly related to their lives.  For example, if I were to study Kurt Vonnegut’s Harrison Bergeron with my students, I might instigate a discussion of equality.  From there, students may be given the opportunity to fill in the discussion with their own thoughts, impressions and experiences with equality.  Overall, I believe that the most important thing that we can do as teachers to connect school with home experiences, despite our discipline, is allowing students the opportunity to express themselves in a risk free environment.   Students can do this in small group discussions, responding to journal prompts, writing personal narratives, etc.  Language Arts is, ultimately, the science of discussion and conversation over a variety of domains.