Does Anyone Have Nancy Atwell’s Phone Number?

Lined paper: $3. No. 2 pencils: $2. Colorful pens for revision and editing: $6. Paycheck: $0. The experience of learning to teach writing: priceless.

Being an English teacher, naturally I was excited when I discovered that the first unit I would ever teach was persuasive writing. I love writing, and I love to help others find their voice in writing. The opportunity galvanized me into creating a unit rich with writing workshop activities: writing time, peer reviewing, conferences—the works. Now I know why teaching writing can be an uphill battle. Crashing and burning, and then quickly recovering, in the course of this unit was an invaluable learning experience. I could write extensively on this, but I’ll stick to only a few lessons I learned. Let’s just say I really wish I had Nancy Atwell’s phone number.

The greatest obstacle (not including classroom management) was time. Especially considering that students are not really taught to write these days, I did not anticipate just how much there was to elucidate. My unit of seven days quickly became a unit of ten days. Even then, another week would have done my students well. For example, they did not understand that they had to fully explicate their statements. It was very difficult to articulate to them how to present an idea and exhaust it fully. I finally discovered that telling them to pretend they were explaining their position to a two-year-old child works wonders. Of course, I had to tell them not to write like a two year old.

Also, conferencing always takes far longer than expected. With minimal writing experience, it takes a significant amount of time to help students correct their challenges, even if selecting only the most important aspects of the paper. They all needed a great deal of assistance with composing a good thesis statement, organizing their arguments, fully explaining each new idea, supporting their position, writing topic sentences, using transitions, and writing good introductions and conclusions. Please note: that list does not even begin to touch upon better word choice (they still think “good” and “bad” are acceptable!), spelling, punctuation (commas in particular), verb tense, pronouns, sentence structure (run-on sentences are especially popular), and innumerable other mechanics and usage challenges.

Another challenge in teaching writing was trying to get students to just write. They all wanted to sit and think of the perfect sentence before writing it down. It is as if they think that writing something down is setting it in stone. But then I had an idea… I brought in several of my papers: one revised and edited by a professor, a tenth draft that still had marks all over it, a very first draft, and one that was a first revision. The last was the messiest of them all. I projected them one by one with the document camera while explaining how messy writing is. All I heard was, “wow!” and “ooooooh!” and “geez!” Several students asked if I failed the paper that the professor had marked up, which made me giggle. They were shocked to find I had received an A. It seemed that everything was beginning to click. I highly recommend this strategy, and it would have been most valuable had I thought of it for the very first day.

All in all, I think the unit went very well. My students and I learned a great deal.