Anita Bushell: writer and editor
Last week I taught an Object Essays workshop, the first of its kind, at the newly renovated Mid-Manhattan Library, now known as the Stavros Niarchos Foundation Library.
A gorgeous site, it was an absolute delight to bring the world of object essay writing to new participants, as well as some good friends, from previous Writer’s Circle workshops.
What a joy it was to be teaching at the library again.
The great Italian cookbook author, Marcella, Hazen once wrote, “Words are capable of mysterious chemistry. Taken singly, the three common words [Good Italian Cooking] appear plain enough in their meaning. We can use any one of them in ordinary conversation, confident we’ll be understood. But put just two of them together and you can set off a debate.”
Last week, I wrote about focusing on fun words before creating “perfect” sentences. But I love Hazen’s idea of word chemistry and mixing and matching as we come up with different meanings.
Here’s an example from my walk the other day: electric green field. It was early and the sun drenched the field, giving the new growth a bright green quality as if it had been electrified.
You can put green and field together; this meaning is clear. What about electric and green? How about switching? Green electric. And then there is electric field…
So many choices, yet not a sentence to be found…
“I never write down a word until I know exactly what I want to say.”
This statement was made by my advisor in graduate school. And I’ve wrestled with it ever since.
It all started because I overwrote and struggled with outlines. The professor asked me to rewrite my thesis several times.
And over the years I’ve had multiple conversations with other writers who have argued against this idea. “I write precisely because I need to figure out what I’m going to say,” my friend Clifford Thompson told me.
Here’s where I think this concept does work well: the academic assignment. Working with high school seniors on the Common App, I do not ask them to write a draft. We focus our first sessions on brainstorming their ideas, then, only when we are sure about what they are going to write, do we get to the sentence structure. I even find myself telling my students it would be harder to cut back their writing rather than expanding it in the later stages.
After all this time, I finally get what the professor was getting at.
“I hate writing,” – a third grade student
“School assignments are so boring,” – a fifth grade student
“You do what for a living? I couldn’t stand writing when I was in school.” – an adult
I hear comments like this all the time. It is the recurring theme in my work with students.
When I first started working as a tutor, I assumed I would simply help students become better writers, polish their work, and clarify their message.
What surprised me was the visceral reaction some students, as well as adults, had when a writing assignment or even the subject of writing came up.
Was writing, for some, the equivalent of being forced to sit at the dinner table and finish some unpalatable food as a child? Did writing elicit an almost PTSD response in others? What was the story?
Naturally, my curiosity lead me to start doing some anecdotal, as well as formal, research on the subject.
While I am still in the process of doing the formal research, I will take a few moments to report on some of my experiential findings on the hatred of writing.
The baseball story is the one I always recount because the third grader who starred in this story was my best writing teacher ever. I was a Learning Leader volunteer at P.S. 282, in the early 2000s and I was assigned to work with a struggling third grade student. At our first session, we worked alone in a classroom, and I tried everything I could to get him to do some writing in his notebook. Nothing. He was unresponsive. The clock ticked. Finally, as the period came to a close and I had absolutely nothing to show for it – proclaiming myself a complete and utter failure in my newfound role as a writing teacher – I grasped at the last straw I had: “What do you do when you’re not in school?”
The student paused, looked at me, and quietly said the word “baseball.”
“Baseball?” I asked.
“Yup, baseball,” he responded. “I play in a little league.”
After that, I could not get this formerly reticent student to stop talking about little league, the positions he played, and the uniforms he wore. The only trick was to get him to transfer all his many thoughts to paper. Moral of the story: kids need to be engaged with their writing.
The assignment is another story I like to recount because it speaks to the difference in the way we teach writing now. When I was in high school and college, I was expected to write the final paper on my own. It was assumed that the tools were given to you over the course of the semester and that you would plan and execute the paper by the last session. While that works for some students, for others, it’s a lot of pressure to build that house on their own, regardless of whether they have the right tools or not.
As a graduate education student, my final project was written with my class. In other words, we spent the semester working on each chapter together, with the professor supporting us along the way. It was like a set of teams doing a jigsaw puzzle together versus a group of individuals doing their own puzzle. At the end of the semester everyone had finished their project and the professor didn’t have the unenviable task of chasing down those who were pulling all nighters, trying to finish the bloody thing. Lesson learned: writing collaboratively is more productive than doing so in isolation.
The tyranny of the blank page is one more example of the kind of challenge I’ve seen young writers face. When I started teaching early childhood I noticed that some three-year-olds knew exactly what they wanted to draw when given a blank piece of paper. For others, they had no clue. What was worse, that blank sheet of paper seemed to stare them in the face, challenging them to create something when they had nothing planned.
I’ve certainly seen this with writing students, as well, that empty notebook demanding they create something original and noteworthy. Some students will rise to this challenge. For others, the task is overwhelming, and they need support breaking it down. This is where brainstorming comes in.
Brainstorming is collaborative and the teacher helps students come up with their initial thoughts. It is an excellent tool for those who have great ideas in their heads but have trouble executing them on paper. The takeaway: It always helps to share your ideas with others.
A final thought is on the use dictation to elicit writing from struggling students. There are those who can tell you their story but cannot seem to write it down. There is some kind of disconnect. “Tell me the story,” I once said to a fourth grader, who had amazing ideas and could even put them into full sentences but could not write them down on paper. We tried something different. He dictated the story to me and I wrote it down. Then I read it back to him and he wrote it down, including his final revisions. What we learned: There are other ways to get your ideas down on paper.
These are some of my mid-summer musings on the craft of teaching writing. I look forward to continuing my formal research as we head into the new school year.
With students back in the classroom, there will be many challenges to address, using both formal and anecdotal research.
Putting it all together. That’s what we did with an essay over the past three weeks.
My rising sixth grader found a subject he was interested in – the beach – and we brainstormed the elements he would include: the sun, sand, ocean, snorkeling, and a refreshing glass of lemonade. Then we got a graphic organizer, put all the elements in order, and wrote them down, using connecting phrases between the paragraphs. At the end we did a final read, revising as we went along. The last step was typing it up.
One of the things we talked about is that an essay can seem overwhelming when you start but if you break it down to its parts and you focus on each one at a time, it’s not so bad, after all. In the end, you put it all together, just like a puzzle.
Oh, and another thing. Writing this out in cursive helped the student practice his handwriting. Another win.
I grew up with Snoopy and the Peanuts gang. I read the comics, had a stuffed Snoopy, and even a cutlery set for meals.
When I taught preschool, Snoopy was my co-pilot. At the beginning of the year, I would introduce stuffed Snoopy and tell the kids that he was going to help teach class. “Snoopy says…” (i.e. “please help pick up the toys,”) became a regular part of our school day.
Lately Snoopy’s been sitting on the shelf, because the older kids don’t really need him. Or do they? Last week, I wrote a letter to my middle school student and sent it in the mail, as an example of a fun way to practice handwriting. While cleaning out my desk I found some Snoopy stickers I used with the little guys. “Do you like Snoopy?” I asked, as an afterthought, at the end of the letter.
Who knew what was coming? Not only does he like Snoopy, but he has a Snoopy watch. At our next session, which turned out to be the best one ever, I downloaded an image of Snoopy at a typewriter, and added a thought bubble: “Snoopy says, “We need snacks!” This is the student’s grocery list template, which is a great way to practice cursive writing.
Oh, and something else. His essay on the beach is almost done. Not only has he written all the parts for his graphic organizer, but he even volunteered to finish writing it on the weekend! Talk about being in the zone. This is what I meant several weeks ago when I wrote about being “lost” in play or reading.
In the end, everyone needs Snoopy.