"How About a Writer In Residence?" by Joan Carris
If you're like most teachers, you'd love having the help of a writer in residence. Just think: a professional writer might manage (somehow) to teach ten-year-old wiggle worms that a period or a comma really matters. That paragraphing has a purpose. That rewriting--not writing--is the name of the game.
Teachers, kids, and writers are a natural combination. After spending time together, everyone should come away with new knowledge about the glorious, aggravating, stimulating craft called writing. To make sure that you all have fun and learn a ton, consider the following:
- Choose your writer carefully. Not all writers love to teach and have a sense of humor, both absolutely necessary for working in schools.
- Plan the coursework with your writer well in advance. Agree on the learning goals, making sure they are realistic. (Remember: acquisition of writing skill is typically slow, requiring years of practice.)
- Ensure solid parental support by doing sufficient advance PR. For instance, be sure parents know that writing teaches students how to think. Anyone who cannot write a clear, well-organized paper cannot think in a clear, organized fashion. Also, make sure that students understand the value of language skills. Their language will shape their lives, after all, and they need to know this truth.
- Set up a few phone conferences (or meetings, if writer lives nearby) to clarify the writer's and the teachers' responsibilities and goals. They should be partners in this venture so that everyone knows how many workshops will be taught, who is going to edit/grade the students' work, et cetera. A small but specific contract is a good idea.
- Establish the writer's fee and coverage of expenses in advance; all monies should be paid upon completion of agreed-upon work.
- While the writer is in residence, whether for just a day or a few weeks, arrange for informal chat sessions with students and teachers. A writer can help best when he or she feels like a member of your school body; teachers will accept writing advice more willingly from one they regard as a fellow worker.
- Acknowledge these truths about the teaching of writing:
- Writing is a difficult skill to learn, even harder to teach.
- Most people, writers included, teach themselves to write by doing it over and over; practice is essential.
- Anyone of normal intelligence can become a competent writer through practice, as writing is mainly a learned craft, not a "gift."
- Most of the writing we read is done by competent, not gifted, writers--people who persisted in learning how to do it.
- Most teachers have never had a good course in writing and yet they are expected to teach others how to write.
- Asking anyone who is not a competent writer to teach writing is a waste of everyone's time and a cause of much anger.
- The best way to raise students' writing skills is by helping their teachers to become competent writers.
As a former teacher, now a writing and literature consultant, I have seen that writing is not a subject widely beloved by teachers or their students. Few instructors are comfortable teaching writing and nearly all kids feel that writing is "too hard." In states like Missouri, where students take statewide writing tests, teachers see the flaws in those tests, see the often-unrealistic objectives for their students, and despair of ever handling the subject in a sensible, appealing way.
Worst of all for teachers is the editing/grading of student papers. When I taught high school English, one class set of 30 essays took at least 10 hours to grade; if I assigned all 150 of my students a theme, I had over 50 hours of grading right there. Since I was adding that 50 hours to my normal 70-hour work week, it was always a labor of love to assign themes. Clearly, teachers with heavy student loads can assign and edit only a few sets of papers per year. Their students, who have grossly insufficient writing practice and teacher-feedback, are bound to be weak writers. No wonder nearly everyone involved groans at the mere mention of writing. (And that's sad for folks like me, who find writing tough, but filled with joy.)
While investing in the skills of a professional writer-in-residence is not a panacea for all our writing woes, it can be a major step forward in how a school views and subsequently teaches this craft. Historically, schools have asked architects to design their buildings and they then pay innumerable specialists to keep the enterprise afloat. It makes sense to hire writing specialists, too.
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