Thinking ahead to fall - Teaching The Composing Processes, somewhat charged...somewhat sad

Today, when Jaydah arrived with her writers' notebook, funk and wit, and incredible sense of individuality, I missed teaching in a high school classroom. Students have offered tremendous feedback over the summer including "This is what school wishes it could be, but can't." Parents, too (sans a few), have offered tremendous feedback. Last camp: My child wants this to last for the rest of the summer. This camp: My children are blessed to be a part of this; anything I can do to promote the good work, let me know.

Perhaps that is why I'm a little sad. I ordered books for the fall, including the course I've been teaching since 2010. It is a semester on best practices on teaching writing and, enthused and energized as always to teach the course, I'm realizing that the current reality students report is HUGE. Unfortunately, having teachers who embrace writing - even English teachers - is rare. I'm using Graham, McArthur, and Perin's updated text on Best Practices, too, and I realize that the language they are using totally caters to the Common Core State Standards, and practically avoids any writing that isn't analytical, academic, and geared for research. There is a narrative chapter, but as our summer program demonstrates, students want to write, seek spaces to be creative, and grow from having freedom. I'm afraid that the CCSS push on writing - although stronger than what we had before - will ignore genres where a student, like Jaydah, can push the limits of their mind.


I was thinking about this when I doodled yesterday morning's pre-opening prompt thoughts. Last week, Tony led a workshop on having something on our mind and taking action with it. I began writing about the lack of writing opportunities in school. To model my thinking, I listed six possible outlets for what I had to say. As I listed the genres: editorials, business letters, newsletters, email, workshop, etc, I realized most of these have been confluences for my ideas at one point or the other. What I worry about in the CCSS mission is that the tests to come - and they will come - will be more of the pervasive literary analysis and, alas, most of this will be on-demand. That is writing, but only a tiny, tiny fraction of it. It measures one's skill to read and analyze literature in a formulaic, on-the-spot timed way.

This brings me back to my Fall course. I want to prepare students to be well-rounded instructors of writing with a variety of tools to encourage students to write in a plethora of genres. I want to merge the writing workshop with both creativity and direct implications of what's to come. This, of course, throws my mind upon the Kentucky I once knew and then the depression grows even more severe. I'm not sure if any of us will ever have such support for writing, K - 12, again.