The "Right" Way To Write...

While reading Penny Kittle's Write Beside Them, I found myself nodding along throughout the entire text and responding to certain things as if we were having a conversation. This is obviously the work of a great writer because it's not easy to get someone to engage in that way, especially when the text isn't exactly being read for leisure. I like how she began chapter one with a quote, it immediately reminded me of the quote at the top of our syllabus. This is something I'd like to do once I'm a teacher as well because I think that it could potentially inspire students if they're at the top of an assignment or worksheet of some sort. It can also open the door to different writers because if they like a certain quote, they may research the author and read some of his or her works. Ultimately it's my goal to get my future students reading and writing so I think that'll be a good tactic. 

As an future ELA teacher, I know there will be a lot of required reading depending on the school I'm in, and also a lot of test prep. Despite the possibility that I will not be in charge of what I'd like to do in an ELA classroom, I want to avoid having my students feel like Patrick Haine, the student that Penny mentions in chapter one as losing his love of books due to required reading and the stress of writing the right way. English is such a creative subject, and unfortunately sometimes our formal educations don't really give students room to explore their creativity. In high school, the only chance I got at creative writing was over the summer when I got a scholarship for a writing program at Sarah Lawrence College. It was one of the greatest weeks of my life and one of my fondest adolescent memories. Even though I was in school for a week during my Summer vacation, I enjoyed it more than lounging by the pool or going to the beach or sleeping in until 1PM and eating ice cream for dinner. I wished that my English class the following school year would be what I had experience at Sarah Lawrence, but I went back in September only to be bombarded with research papers and regents prep...it was depressing, discouraging and frustrating because I knew all the glory of what an English classroom would be, and I felt as though I was being punished for living in a city with a terrible school district, or deprived of creativity so I could fit a societal mold that placed far too much importance on grades rather than innovation and ingenuity. To this day, people still look down on me when I tell them I'm an English major.

"Oh you must have a lot of time on your hands..."

"Are you sure you want to do that? You'll never find a job..."

"Oh, so you're gonna be a teacher? You better marry someone rich!"

"That's unrealistic you can't build a life if you're reading all day..."

It's sad that even in an English classroom, some kids can still feel like both Patrick Haine, and myself. Patrick says, 

"My childhood love of books fizzled when I entered junior high—all of a sudden I was in an environment where I had hours and hours of required reading, so much home- work about boring subjects that I had no time to read what I wanted to read. With this went the writing—we never had “freewrite” time anymore, I always had to try to write what the teacher wanted, the “right” thing, what needed to be done for the grade. Creativity was gone. This repression of creativity continued until my senior year in high school."

It's sad that both Patrick and I had to wait until college to be able to truly apply our love of reading in an academic environment. 

Writing is art. How fulfilled would a painter feel if they were asked to draw a cat over and over and over with no variations. Whiskers can't be purple. Fur can't be green. A three eyed cat? Nope. This is what's happening to too many students in their English classrooms. They are being told what to write and how to write most of the time, and although it is beneficial in certain aspects, it can't dominate the curriculum or we're going to create a generation of people who could care less about the ART of reading and writing. The world needs more creative people, therefor the world needs more creative educators, more Penny Kittle's. I want to be a Penny Kittle.

Although everything I read really resonated with me, the opening chapter is what truly inspired me. It related a lot to what we are learning in this classroom. For instance, Patrick admires the fact that Penny had written a book...that she was a published author. This is SO important because as teachers of writing, WE NEED TO WRITE. This is why we are blogging. This is why we are keeping writer's notebooks, so the future Patrick's in our classroom can look at us and have their love of reading return to them like a waking limb. I really hope that I teach at a school where I'm allowed to encourage students to embrace their own literacy instead of making them agree with a standard opinion. 

I know this has nothing to do with the article, but my sister just took her English Regents exam and had to obviously write an argument essay either agreeing or disagreeing with a series of articles about Monsanto and GMO's... this absolutely enraged me, because there is overwhelming evidence on how GMO's cause cancer and other health problems. But what did my sister do? She found it was easier for her to agree with GMO's in her essay because the articles they provided for her were completely biased. The ulterior motives of that entire regents exam were frightening and disgusting in my opinion because they sought to brainwash, and despite the fact that my sister is smart, she could not find a way to argue against GMO's in a way that didn't threaten her grade. I mean, why is NY state seeking to brainwash students through an ENGLISH exam? Because essays require critical thinking and if they can get students to write using their own words and their own brains and pulling information from articles that can apply to the essay, they are complying with whatever horrifying agenda Monsanto has to get us to be ok with genetically modified food... but I digress. 

Students should be learning how to exercise their creativity and develop their own literacy, critical approach to dissecting literature, and writing in a way that helps them express themselves...rather than with fear of getting it right. Yes students need to know how to be grammatically correct, spell correctly, speak correctly, etc...but they also need to know that that isn't all there is in the world of academic literacy. Just because it's academic doesn't mean it should be any less stimulating...I hope my future students look forward to reading and writing in my class. I hope the schools that have strict curriculums become less rigid and more creative. Creative doesn't mean that less is being learned...there needs to be a balance between what will help them thrive in today's society, and what will develop them as individuals.