Writing teachers have known for a long time that writing alongside our students is valuable. It allows us to model the expectations, model vulnerability and build connections to our students by sharing our lives.
In our most recent integrated humanities unit, all of these things came to light as we explored together the connections between collective identity characteristics and poetry. After recreating our own versions of identity poems by Sara Abou Rashed and Branden Wellington, we were prepared to bring our own unique ideas through the ever ominous WRITING PROCESS.
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| "A" Writing Process |
The unit had started innocently enough. I was intending to do some demonstration writing, and maybe take my poem into drafting, but nothing further than that. And then, as the universe often does, this email landed in my inbox:
In a moment of inspiration (temporary insanity?) I replied and suggested that I could have something ready to perform. That pushed me into full writing mode. I told my students about my crazy idea and they not only took interest, but jumped to support me! I never expected that this year's early efforts to build a safe and comfortable environment for risk-taking in my classroom would be extended back to me as well.
I began with a demonstration of my pre-writing process, which actually began a few days before I lifted a pen. I told the students about "MY writing process" and how I often pre-write for one or two days in my head on my morning runs. With a few verses in my head and a basic idea, I laid out my plans for my poem.
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| Pre-writing |
For this task, I had been able to clearly lay out some of the bigger aspects of the poem in my pre-writing page. I had an idea for the message of the poem, the tone, some ideas for language and even a beginning idea for a stanza. My students saw this and went wild on their own pre-writing.
At least, some of them did. Others went right into drafting stanzas, which for eighth graders, is okay in my class. The writing process isn't linear and we have to respect our tendencies as writers. They were allowed to jump right in with the caveat that they might need to return to pre-writing later in the process as they uncovered what their poems were really about.
Excited and emboldened by the energy of the poets in my classroom, I continued my modeling.
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| Drafting |
A few days of drafting followed, along with the authentic pressure to have a completed poem ready for the Coffee House in two weeks. In the image, you can see that I did three days of drafting in my notebook. The black line represents day 1, the dark green represents day 2 and the light green is day 3. On day three of my drafting, I actually gasped out loud (in class, in between writing conferences while students were quietly working) and said, "Oh! I get it! This is what my poem is actually about."
In spite of my pre-writing, the drafting phase had kicked me into the realization that my poem wasn't going to a funny piece about how Minnesotans "talk funny," it was going to be a reckoning of my personal journey toward equity and justice in the wake of the events in my home state in the year 2020. Sharing this with my students excited me and allowed me to model vulnerability and willingness to change and start over.
The writing process anchor chart in my classroom tells writers to get out of their notebooks and onto their computers the moment they are excited, so I quickly shifted to my laptop and began constructing verses and stanzas. My students did the same. At least, those who resisted jumping on the Google Docs the very first day.
With a first draft, I realized that my teaching partner and I had the opportunity to build something very special for our students, so we used Loom to record a peer conference on my poem to share with our students to help them raise the quality of their accountable peer talk. We built a format for that conference (below) and recorded and shared the video. The vulnerability was becoming very real by this point.
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| 1-2-1 Peer Conferencing |
I got great feedback from my partner and revised my poem. My students got a model for an effective conference, a tool to use across their classes and great feedback from their partners.
Some polishing, and my poem was ready for the Coffee House. But was I? This is one of the first major events we've hosted on campus in the era of COVID and the house was going to be packed. I needed to practice. In my first class of the day, I was able to perform almost all of the poem without looking. This was going to be great. By the afternoon, I had become so nervous that I tried three times to perform to my second class and just couldn't. This is where the empathy for my students really kicked in. We ask them to do hard work. All.of.the.time. It was beneficial for me to feel this struggle to really understand what we ask them to do.
By the evening, the Coffee House began, and as I stood (not sat - too nervous) in the auditorium, my students kept coming up to me. "Good luck!" "We came just to see you!" They were encouraging in a way that was truly authentic. It felt right; we were a community of writers supporting each other.
After waiting through 20 performances(!), it was my turn. I took the stage and published. It was exhilarating, supportive and authentic. All of the things I hope is true of my class.
In the end, what I thought would be good for my students ended up as gift to me. I was offered the opportunity to model the process and build authentic tools for them to enhance their writing. The 1-2-1 conference model was received very well by our students and yielded QUALITY feedback that improved everyone's poems. I was also given the gifts that come from being vulnerable. My students went out of their way to support me, and along with their support I received the knowledge of experiencing what they are asked by us to do because I did it too. Finally, my process of sharing my own identity with them helped us all dig a little bit deeper into who we are and why we see the world the way we do.
Finally, in an effort to extend my vulnerability; the poem for you dear readers. Be gentle. :)
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