“I hate writing,” – a third grade student
“School assignments are so boring,” – a fifth grade student
“You do what for a living? I couldn’t stand writing when I was in school.” – an adult
I hear comments like this all the time. It is the recurring theme in my work with students.
When I first started working as a tutor, I assumed I would simply help students become better writers, polish their work, and clarify their message.
What surprised me was the visceral reaction some students, as well as adults, had when a writing assignment or even the subject of writing came up.
Was writing, for some, the equivalent of being forced to sit at the dinner table and finish some unpalatable food as a child? Did writing elicit an almost PTSD response in others? What was the story?
Naturally, my curiosity lead me to start doing some anecdotal, as well as formal, research on the subject.
While I am still in the process of doing the formal research, I will take a few moments to report on some of my experiential findings on the hatred of writing.
The baseball story is the one I always recount because the third grader who starred in this story was my best writing teacher ever. I was a Learning Leader volunteer at P.S. 282, in the early 2000s and I was assigned to work with a struggling third grade student. At our first session, we worked alone in a classroom, and I tried everything I could to get him to do some writing in his notebook. Nothing. He was unresponsive. The clock ticked. Finally, as the period came to a close and I had absolutely nothing to show for it – proclaiming myself a complete and utter failure in my newfound role as a writing teacher – I grasped at the last straw I had: “What do you do when you’re not in school?”
The student paused, looked at me, and quietly said the word “baseball.”
“Baseball?” I asked.
“Yup, baseball,” he responded. “I play in a little league.”
After that, I could not get this formerly reticent student to stop talking about little league, the positions he played, and the uniforms he wore. The only trick was to get him to transfer all his many thoughts to paper. Moral of the story: kids need to be engaged with their writing.
The assignment is another story I like to recount because it speaks to the difference in the way we teach writing now. When I was in high school and college, I was expected to write the final paper on my own. It was assumed that the tools were given to you over the course of the semester and that you would plan and execute the paper by the last session. While that works for some students, for others, it’s a lot of pressure to build that house on their own, regardless of whether they have the right tools or not.
As a graduate education student, my final project was written with my class. In other words, we spent the semester working on each chapter together, with the professor supporting us along the way. It was like a set of teams doing a jigsaw puzzle together versus a group of individuals doing their own puzzle. At the end of the semester everyone had finished their project and the professor didn’t have the unenviable task of chasing down those who were pulling all nighters, trying to finish the bloody thing. Lesson learned: writing collaboratively is more productive than doing so in isolation.
The tyranny of the blank page is one more example of the kind of challenge I’ve seen young writers face. When I started teaching early childhood I noticed that some three-year-olds knew exactly what they wanted to draw when given a blank piece of paper. For others, they had no clue. What was worse, that blank sheet of paper seemed to stare them in the face, challenging them to create something when they had nothing planned.
I’ve certainly seen this with writing students, as well, that empty notebook demanding they create something original and noteworthy. Some students will rise to this challenge. For others, the task is overwhelming, and they need support breaking it down. This is where brainstorming comes in.
Brainstorming is collaborative and the teacher helps students come up with their initial thoughts. It is an excellent tool for those who have great ideas in their heads but have trouble executing them on paper. The takeaway: It always helps to share your ideas with others.
A final thought is on the use dictation to elicit writing from struggling students. There are those who can tell you their story but cannot seem to write it down. There is some kind of disconnect. “Tell me the story,” I once said to a fourth grader, who had amazing ideas and could even put them into full sentences but could not write them down on paper. We tried something different. He dictated the story to me and I wrote it down. Then I read it back to him and he wrote it down, including his final revisions. What we learned: There are other ways to get your ideas down on paper.
These are some of my mid-summer musings on the craft of teaching writing. I look forward to continuing my formal research as we head into the new school year.
With students back in the classroom, there will be many challenges to address, using both formal and anecdotal research.