Every Teacher Must Write
Teachers who write inspire students who write
The first lesson I learned as a National Writing Project teacher is that teachers who write make better writing teachers. As a writer long before I became a writing teacher I felt the truth of that lesson in my gut and 15 years later I know the powerful magic created in my classroom because I write with my students, share my writing with my students, and experience the struggles that all writers feel as we continue to learn and grow.
I am a writing evangelist after all and believe in the power of writing to help us learn about ourselves and our world as well as reflect on that learning. But more than that writing helps us connect with other humans across space and time and that is a lesson that the pandemic drove home to me. It may just be the most important lesson I learned as a teacher because writing with my students has made all the difference in the world in my classes and in my life. From: Notable Notes: Teachers Should Write (reprise)
Discover Your Writing Joy
I began teaching in the Fall of 1987, but did not truly settle into the profession of teaching writing until the Fall of 1999. During every decade of my career teaching conditions have worsened and my stress levels have risen. Similarly I have witnessed a degradation in learning conditions for my students. My one consolation has been leaning into the joy I find in writing and sharing that joy with my students.
Writing has always been an important part of my life, but finding joy in my writing has made all the difference in the quality of my life and my teaching. From: Finding Your Writing Joy
I have found that writing with my students not only brings me joy, but many of my students report discovering (or recovering) their own writing joy. In addition, writing together as a community is a wonderful stress reliever for us all. After all, who among us has not been broken in some way by modern education?
We cannot hope to survive teaching in the midst of this perfect storm of attacks on education from endemic pandemic teaching, a fractured society populated by people damaged by said endemic pandemic, and relentless attacks on our country’s institutions that focus like laser beams on our specific institution. There are so many layers to our stress and exhaustion we cannot even count them and our struggles are intensified because we see them reflected in our students and communities. We need to remember that we are human and our students are human. When teaching humans we need to remember to model grace for our students, find our people, build our community, nurture joy, and only do the work that matters. We need to do these things for our students and for ourselves and sometimes we need to be reminded that one of the most important things we can model for our students is taking care of ourselves. From: Teachers: Put Your Oxygen Mask On First
Writing is an import part of my self-care as well as how I care for my writing community. I find refuge in writing both alone and in community.
Writing project teachers know that we need to feed the writer. We do not expect our students to suddenly create intriguing prose, sparkling fiction, and magical poetry without lots of journaling, reading, and workshop time. We know it is essential to feed the writers in our classrooms, but all too often, we lose track of one of the essentials to be an effective teacher of writers: We forget that writers who teach also need to feed the writer. From: Teachers: Don’t Forget The Most Important Writer Is You
Find Your Writing Community
My June has been full of joyful writing in community thanks to both the National Writing Project and Lexington Poetry Month. Both have offered me writing marathon experiences open to writers who are old friends, friends found over previous writing marathons, and new friends discovered during our journey together. Most of all these experiences have challenged me and inspired me to write and write and write. You can learn more about the National Writing Project’s Write Across America virtual marathon (as well as other great writing marathon information here).
The writing marathon is one of the simplest classroom tools we have to offer to feed the writer whether that writer is you, the instructor, or the writers in your care. All you need are writers and some time to write and share together. From: We Need More Writing Marathons
If you want to be a better writer then you must write and you must write in community. If you want to be a better writing teacher then you must write and you must write with your students. I don’t make the rules!