Writing - What makes this process so hard?

 I teach English courses to my juniors and seniors. Every August, as I meet new students, I see guards in their posture and demeanor, wary of me. Many have heard of positive results from my teaching; others seem fearful or daunted by the process. Pre-Covid, at social gatherings and meeting new people, when I describe myself as an English teacher, I hear successful adults mostly report a poor opinion of their writing skills. I frequently hear stories wishing for a teacher who taught them how to write. 

What about the writing process is so frightening? Jonathan Swift defines and simplifies good writing for all, simply "Proper words in proper places, make the true definition of a style." Most agree when a word or phrase is well-written. It resonates. It sounds as we thought it should. It describes, with precision and poise, the idea formed in our minds but unable to articulate. We recognize authenticity and respond with, "Yes. That's it."

Helping students get to that result is my calling. I wish the writing process actually followed a regimented process. I wish I could create the one-size-fits-most method, monetize it, and supplement my teacher's salary! Dozens of textbook writers have tried to document steps to guide learners. Why haven't these methods worked? The steps remove all personal and emotional from the process. Learners are people, full of emotions and needs and fears and insecurities and motivations and desires. Learners are people who need and want to find a person of trust, a safe person, to be vulnerable with. Learners are people who express responses best through facial expressions, posture, barely audible sounds, emotions - laughter and tears, and hand gestures. Learners need people they can see and build trust eye-to-eye, in close proximity with one another, and they need time. The process of building trust is rarely quick. Sometimes, students come to my classes eager, having had a trusted sibling or close friend offer assurance of success. Most of the time, I have the responsibility - and privilege - of building a trust relationship with the student bit by bit, day by day, until the student sees a positive result from my advice. 

Teaching in a hybrid model during the 2020-2021 year proved the most challenging of my career. The demands of a dual-focus classroom meant no group, those in person or online, could get the fullest trust-building necessary. And in a school year of so many unknowns, trying to see the facial nuances needed for trust-building became too hard for many. For some, they adapted quickly and effectively to vocal tones, eye smiles, eyebrow signals, but for most of us, we are still adapting to understand new interpersonal skills required by masking. Currently, my students are in person unless allowed hybrid because of mandatory quarantine, and we are masked for the foreseeable future. My role is to build trust with them quickly and help all adjust to recognizing my vocal cues in laughter, positive tones, questioning, delight. These 16 and 17 and 18-year-olds are learning how to read people's faces, temperament, and intentions through new pathways, and so far are doing well adapting. 

So, since August 7th, the day I met the first group of new students, I've focused my primary objectives on trust-building. I've shared personal stories, shown pictures, hung art on classroom walls gifted by former students, asked questions about their sports and hobbies, offered compliments on shoes, jewelry, hairstyles, and shirts. I've taken time to hear why they are tired or overwhelmed or frustrated. I've prayed for them, in my heart and in their presence. I've mostly listened. Especially when we take a break in the middle of our 90-minute block classes to walk outside, step away from studies, unmask, and enjoy the beauty of hot North Carolina August. I use every moment of our August classes to build trust so as we begin writing our first essays together, many will understand my true motives: to help them grow as individuals. 

Whether I help in English 12 classes or AP Englishes or with college admission essays, all students want to learn how to take ideas and impressions and articulate well so others can benefit and understand. The great artists interpret what our minds perceive. Van Gogh's Sunflowers captures yellows and golds and moments of beauty we see when in a field of sunflowers, and he freezes that moment to allow us time to relive fleeting moments of wonder. Writing needs to be the same way. Students come to me with a myriad of experiences and influences, all serving to develop their own voice. My role is to guide them toward trusting that voice and improving that voice and creating the most precise representation of that voice possible. 

So, standing near a student in the classroom or sitting on opposite sides of a table or looking at a shared document, I ask questions and look at the way the student responds. I become a thesaurus, interpreting and directing toward the concept students try to vocalize. I discourage the use of the 'delete' key on their Macs and require a lot of handwritten drafting, always with pens to prevent loss of ideas. I encourage students to postpone editing and correcting while trying to get the first words out. And I discourage them from trying to phrase the entire sentence in their heads before committing words to the page or document. I need to train them to trust themselves as much as I need them to be trained to trust me. I give them great writers to read so they can see words and patterns become ideas. I give them baby steps that have no stakes before beginning to assess their writing with numbers and letters in my grade book. 

Not all of my students will testify they emerge from my classes as better writers. So many variables contribute to that declaration. Rather than hearing former students are 'better writers' or 'successful in college,' I'd rather hear students emerge confident and willing and no longer intimidated. I'd rather they meet an English teacher at a social gathering in the future and report to him or her thankful for a teacher who demystified the process by building their confidence. That's my long-term goal- helping build confident people, content in who they were created to be, and comfortable contributing to their families, communities, and in their careers. 

But for now, I'll get back to reviewing the first drafts of senior essays and will work to keep my comments focused on trust-building exercises and will be thankful this dusty blog showed up on my screen today.

Riches

Today proved highly unusual for my seniors and me. As usual, the second semester seniors dragged into first period College Writing moments before or shortly after the 8:00 a.m. bell. Their outfits were the only oddity- young ladies in dark dresses and young men in black suits and serious ties. We needed to attend a funeral together today. We needed to travel a short distance to Durham to show support for a fellow senior, just eighteen years old, who experienced a loss I have never faced: the death of her mother.

In the midst of my student's personal tragedy, I had the opportunity to see the richness of life, the richness of love, the richness of community, the richness of duty, the richness of maturity.

Our school is small with a senior class of only 40. As the students learned of this mother's unexpected death, all seniors asked permission to attend the funeral. Many had not ever attended one until today.

We were the first to arrive in Watts Street Baptist Church, the historic church built in 1925, that included many elements missing from today's modern, hip churches- a pipe organ, stained glass windows, a robed choir, a transomed ceiling, hymn books. I watched as my students, possibly unfamiliar with the liturgy, the music, the tradition, sit solemnly and respectfully ready to embrace all elements in support of their classmate.

We read the Psalms written in King James I's orders; we sang words scribed by Saint Francis of Assisi; we watched the Army emissaries complete military honors and present the flag to one young lady; we hugged the family members; we thanked the pastors; we ate the food lovingly prepared by the church body. We participated, as a community, offering only condolences and hugs, not relief from pain.

Yesterday, my students and I wore our normal clothes. I advised my students on tips for organizing their research. I reminded them how to cite sources correctly. Tomorrow, I will offer strategies for self and peer editing. We will move forward on regular assignments necessary to complete their college preparatory education.

Today, we learned valuable lessons together. My regular lesson plans and unit objectives fail to cover the life skills learned today. Students had a rapid immersion in loss. In death. We learned that when you see someone hurting, when you hear of tragedy, when you feel helpless, when nothing will make the situation better, we learned there is only one thing to do:  show solidarity simply through the act of being present.

Today, this teacher is grateful and proud and broken-hearted and thankful and optimistic and rich. This teacher is very rich.

Teaching & Reteaching 

#TeachinginNC
Why am I starting a blog? Because I need to write, speak, and think more than just in Room 114. I have a story to tell about the on-going process of learning. That's all.

My student have now finished reading, for their first and most likely only time, Hawthorne's The Scarlet Letter and selections from Chaucer's The Canterbury Tales. Honestly, I've lost count but probably have read Hawthorne at least a dozen times while Chaucer, is fewer, but I've studied his entire work in the original Middle English. Am I bored with these selections? Does familiarity breed contempt or endearment?

Strangely, the quality of the work, especially in Hawthorne, shines strong in multiple studies. Each re-reading forces new insights, new understanding, and new revelations. I see a word or a punctuation device, even a simple hyphen, never noticed before. In bringing the work to a classroom of diverse learners, I gain insight from those who learn differently than I. This year's juniors have artistic tendencies so I directed them toward colors, structures, and locations. The visual direction their brains focus showed Hawthorne's structuring of the novel anew. The scaffold scene, key at the beginning, middle, and end, showcases character changes and revelations even in the position of the characters' feet on ground, steps, or on a platform. The characters involved, as they touch each other physically, reveal to the reader themes of love, loyalty, betrayal, and forgiveness. Have I read this information before? Of course. Watching the words create meaning and guiding less confident readers toward understanding requires that I understand their processing methods. In doing so, my processing increases. Hawthorne's craftsmanship impresses me again, during my 2014 rereading, and excites me as I tuck another piece of knowledge in my educator's arsenal.

How can I grow tired of teaching? For every piece of knowledge or new skill I hope to transmit, my students reinforce, train, teach, and transmit so much more directly to me.  On this Saturday afternoon, while feeling confident about the completed unit on The Scarlet Letter, I'm ready now to move to my back porch and begin grading editorials my seniors wrote concerning an issue raised in The Scarlet Letter. Did the students understand Chaucer's social commentary enough to connect ideas? Did the access to digital news and opinion reports prove effective? Did they enjoy the task? Did their writing convey ideas effectively. We'll see. Even while assessing their efforts today, I'll learn more about my favorite British writer and understand the characters in the Prologue or in the Miller's Tale in a new, clever way altogether.