Writers for Life: Origins

A few years ago, I was a fellow at the Summer Institute of the South Coast Writing Project, my regional affiliate of the National Writing Project, at the University of California, Santa Barbara.  This experience was a transformative experience for me both as a teacher, and a writer.  I came out of the Summer Institute revitalized as a teacher, and eagerly looked forward to the beginning of the 2011-2012 school year so I could start working the many ideas percolating in my head into my 7th grade English language arts classes.

I immediately began incorporating several of the elements from the Summer Institute in my classes.  We  begin each class with our "Daily Writing" for ten minutes or so, although I give the students a prompt to work on instead of the free write approach of the Summer Institute.  Every Friday we have an "Open Mic," where student volunteers share their writing; but unlike the Summer Institute where we all had to share some of our writing, I never require a student to share if he or she is uncomfortable doing so.  Also, since we are on a block schedule, each class only has an Open Mic every other Friday.

None of these things would work, though, if I didn't create an environment where students could embrace the identity of being a writer, rather than seeing writing as something they have to do in English class.  Creating such an environment and classroom culture has been my proudest moment as a teacher, and it all started on a whim.

(Little things like a student writing this on my whiteboard is just a small part of the environment in our Writers' Sanctuary, also known as my classroom.)

On the first day of school, in addition to the tedious review of the course expectations and classroom guidelines, on a whim I decided to skip those clichéd icebreaker activities and had the students turn to the person sitting next to them and introduce themselves saying "Hi, I'm ___, and I'm a Writer!"  They laughed, but did it enthusiastically, and something amazing was begun.

There were many milestones along the way, but fast forward nearly three years later, and being a "Writer for Life" is something nearly all of my students embrace with pride.  I'm in awe of what has happened, seeing a group of seventh or eighth grade student not only "in the flow" during the daily writing, but groaning and begging for more time when the timer reaches zero.  I always grant this request, for although it usually puts me further and further behind in my planning, how can I say no to students who WANT to write?  

(Just another day of 8th graders in the flow during Daily Writing.)

I thought it would be difficult to get students to share their writing at Open Mic, but now I feel horrible when I have to deny many students volunteering to read because we run out of time.  We have a W4L logo, and a "Writer's sign" that students give me wherever I see them, in or out of school.  Several of my students have published novels after winning National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo).  Students who previously hated writing and who struggled to write a few sentences at the beginning of the year, now frequently write pages and pages when the writing prompt is engaging enough. 

I am in awe of what my students have accomplished, and will do everything within my control to build on this foundation.  After all, I owe my students and fellow writers no less than that.