We Are Writers

One of the things I miss the most in my current role as a content area specialist for the district is not having students of my own. I do have plenty of opportunities to work with other teachers' students, but nothing beats the connections made in the day-to-day of the classroom.

By my 3rd year of teaching, I added Exceptional Student Education to my certificate, something many of my peers warned me not to do because I would be forever "stuck" in that role. What they didn't know was that experience would shape me into the educator I am today.

At the time, the 10th graders were required to take the FCAT Writing Exam, not high stakes for them as it was not tied to graduation, but high stakes for the teachers and the schools. Consequently, there wasn't a shortage of pressure applied to English II teachers across the district.

I knew I needed to start early for this February test, so about 3 weeks into school, I introduced my students--all with some type of written language disability--to the expectations for the exam, a non-text dependent prompt. Here is an example of one courtesy of the Florida Department of Education:

Writing to Explain (Expository)
Writing Situation: To honor the accomplishments of the first president of the United States, George Washington, his picture has been printed on the dollar bill since 1869.

Directions for Writing: Think about another person whose actions in life show that he or she deserves such a honor. Now write to explain why this person is worthy of having his or her picture printed on the dollar bill (http://www.fldoe.org).

About 2 minutes into my spiel, mostly intended to get the students pumped up about the task, Evan interrupted me. "What if your whole life, people told you you're stupid, that you can't write?"

My heart broke in that instant, but I kept my composure. "Who said you had to believe them?"

Now, I am certain  no one ever uttered the words you are stupid to Evan, but that is the message he received when he took this same test in 4th and 8th grades. His learning disability made it a struggle for him to spell words correctly. He had a rich vocabulary, thought critically, and spoke beautifully, but he spelled everything phonetically, for example using -shun instead of -tion or -sion. 

I decided to do something unplanned. After posting the prompt and setting the timer for 45 minutes--the amount of time they were allotted on the real test--I sat amongst my students and wrote my own response to the prompt, making some mistakes on purpose. But, I didn't have to try hard to not make the essay my best writing. I do much better writing about text or research writing than random prompts I have no interest in or experience with, especially when I get very little time to ponder the topic and come up with ideas.

The next day, I announced that we were going to analyze someone's essay as a whole class. Groans filled the room. Then, I put my paper under the overhead projector. I saw a couple of kids look at each other quizzically.

As we looked at my essay sentence by sentence, paragraph by paragraph, the students politely pointed out my grammar errors and even made some suggestions on how I could word things differently and combine simple sentences into complex and compound sentences.

Showing that vulnerability and willingness to put my own work under the microscope was one of the best things I have ever done. Students who had refused to write the day before decided to write as the others shared their work with peers to get suggestions for revisions. I didn't add anything unless they asked.

We repeated this throughout the first semester, but students began coming to the overhead with their papers, a huge leap for most.

When results came back--yes, we actually received the results before the school year ended--Evan balled up his test report and angrily threw it across the room. I asked what was wrong. He had scored a 3, perfectly acceptable the year before, but this year, a 3.5 was considered "passing."

"See, I told you I was stupid!"

"Well, I was the one who was supposed to teach you this stuff, and I failed you, so maybe I'm the one who's stupid," I replied.  I concentrated so much on the craft of writing (silly me), that I didn't give enough time to the basics of grammar and conventions.

Objections to that statement filled the room. I let the conversations continue because I believed that was more important than the lesson I had planned. The consensus was that, no, I wasn't stupid. I was a great writer, and I helped them become better writers.

They believed they had become better writers. And, I believed it too.

We made a pact that day. They would not define themselves based on a one-day draft writing test, but on their improvements as writers. After all, no first draft is ever perfect. I would venture to say the phrase "final draft" is an oxymoron.

This is the message I hope those kids still carry to this day: We are writers when we put ourselves out there. We are writers when we know our work is never "done."