To write or not to write? That is not the question. Writing as an exercise has the possibility to tap into thought and creativity that might otherwise only pin ball around inside the blossoming mind of an adolescent. Writing as a skill can provide the opportunity to express one's thoughts, opinions, ideas and stories at varying levels and for a diverse range of purposes. The key here are the "possibilities" and "opportunities" that writing as an art form present.
As a student in elementary school I was provided with opportunities to use creativity in creating stories, reflect on personal experiences through journal writing and generally write about "stuff" that was interesting to me. Entering middle school I experienced a sharp shift in the expectations from my writing. It seemed like creativity and personal interests were replaced with structure and mundane topics and this trend echoed through the majority of high school. The possibility of developing a passion for writing was displaced for much of my school career. As I shift into the role of a middle school teacher, I feel that I will need to foster opportunities for students to continually explore different forms of writing, develop and exercise writing as a process and motivate disengaged writers with alternative goals.
By the end of each year indeed, I hope that each student is able to write a five-paragraph essay. That being said I hope that I will have instilled in students the idea that they can still be creative within this structure. All forms of writing have some sort of structure. Even stories need a beginning, middle and an end in the very least, but structure should not limit freedom of expression and creativity of delivery. In the Structure and Freedom article, the sixth grade students felt like "essays were written to please the teacher, reflecting the teachers ideas, never the student's; they were always dull, boring, factual, voiceless..." (Casey & Hemenway, p. 71). It will be important to give students the opportunity to employ creativity in more formal essay writing and teach them to take ownership of assignments in keeping connected to their writing. Teaching writing in middle school should not completely focus on formal writing, as there needs to be balance so that students are practicing and experimenting with their new skills and using them across their writing.
Writing is sometimes spontaneous and words can seem to flow together effortlessly. The reality; however, is that writing takes time and employs a process to take an idea and produce a refined work. The ELA IRP supports this notion and emphasizes the writing process through a "scaffolding" analogy in which students are guided along each step to support skill building until independence is achieved (BC ELA IRP, Grade 7, pp. 22-33). Student's writing will become more effective if they learn to draft and refine their work. As a teacher I will need to consistently reinforce this aspect of writing and more importantly give students suitable time to refine and reflect on their writing. In class we drew pictures and then had a short amount of time to create a story; however, I was unable to formulate creative thoughts under this pressure. I use this as an example of how the pressure of time can sometimes frustrate and disengage individuals from writing.
Being disengaged from writing brings me to my final point. In regards to ELA, I foresee my toughest challenge to be teaching students who have been totally turned off of writing. In this case, it is imperative to teach these individuals the power of written language and its usage across many aspects of life. We touched on this idea in class in talking about certain individuals who have certain interests such as mechanics. In attempting to reach everyone "we must plunge into possibility. We must free adolescents from writing sentences and papers and help them write their lives…we prepare writers by challenging them to think deeply and craft with passion (Kittle, 212). Writing will be apart of everyone’s life in some capacity so it becomes ever more important to connect disengaged students to the utility of writing and just maybe that will spark further interest and tap into a hidden passion.
Writing should never be one dimensional, it can never be forced or rushed, and it is for everyone. As a middle school teacher, I feel like I am entering a make or break period in time in terms fostering life long writers. Life is starting to get serious for adolescents, but that does not mean that their writing has to as well. Writing is an art form that needs to always have a degree of freedom attached to it, otherwise it risks becoming a mechanical process. It is a creative process and it must always be taught with this in mind.
