Writing, Writing, Writing?

What does it mean to write?

That is the question.

Locker and I have been struggling with finding a way to help our students love writing since we began teaching. Right, Locker?

That's right, Shah.

In the past we have always favored creative forms of writing over non-fiction writing. It was all about projects and the process of writing, discovering yourself through your writing.

Blah blah blah.

Be nice, Locker. But this year, we decided that our students really needed to learn how to write an essay and write it well. We focused ENTIRELY on non-fiction writing.

Except in communication arts.

Right, except in communication arts, where we focused on poetry. In humanities we weren't doing our students any favors by skimming over non-fiction writing.

So we went to the other extreme.

All we did was non-fiction writing. And we got really caught up in test-writing-

No way.

What Locker is trying to say is that maybe we focused too much on test writing and not enough on what we call "authentic" writing. We got so worried about whether or not our students could organize our essays that we put aside developing their voices.

Writing that you do in real life.

I would say that we didn't really get to this kind of writing until the end of the year, when we started this blog project. And honestly, since we've started, I've been so impressed with the writing our students have done. Their voices are stronger, they are engaged -

AND their writing is organized! With transition words and everything!

Yes, Locker (he gets excited about this stuff). It's like all the skills we have been teaching all year finally sank in and our students were able to use these skills to produce honest and compelling writing. Of course, it's not perfect yet - we have a way to go - but I really feel like our 8th graders have come a long way.

Okay, Shah. That's great. But we are supposed to reflect on our own writing.

Oh yeah, right. Okay, the next post. I promise.