Literacy Journal - Week 4

Writing Essentials Chapter 3: Routman asks us to examine our lives as writers so that we can more authentically and effectively teach writing. She poses four questions on page 41 for us to explore. Consider these questions and write a response about your writing process and yourself as a writer.

I thought this was an extremely important and incisive chapter, because it really gets to the heart of the matter, i.e., how can we, as educators, attempt to teach students how to write, if we either cannot write ourselves or are unwilling to undergo the same discipline and skills that we expect from our kids. Even more important than the basic components of good writing (e.g., spelling, grammar, etc.), teachers need to know how to express themselves clearly, concisely, and most of all, thoughtfully, whether we are teaching kids how to write fiction, essays, poetry or journals. Unfortunately, far too many teachers have little or no background in writing. Even as a lawyer, required at times to write lengthy legal memorandums or even an occasional scholarly article or contribution to a journal, I sometimes have lost the reflectiveness and yes, sense of wonder, that we look for in students' writings.

That is why I think it is so crucial that we, as prospective teachers, do exactly what Routman suggests, and examine our "life as a writer," especially those of us who have not had such a life up to now. The four questions set forth on page 41 provide the perfect opportunity for us to practice what we hope to teach. For many of us, we can use these questions in our numerous assignments in our UW Bothell Education courses, but some of those papers tend to be overly scholarly and/or academic. Rather, I think that in our blogs, our book reviews, and even in our lesson and unit plans, we need to find answers to Routman's four questions and to write with the same purposefulness and energy that we are going to be asking of our students.

Again, speaking personally, my whole decision to return to school and earn a teacher's certification, turning my back, so to speak, on a 25-year career as an attorney, has rejuvenated my whole approach to writing and has started my creative juices flowing once again (as a precocious 14-year old I once wrote a very pretentious but personally satisfying one-act play about a misunderstood junior high school boy, complete with pregnant pauses and Pinteresque silences). I hadn't written a poem since my college days, some 35 years ago, until I had to complete one for Jane's introductory seminar last spring, and I had forgotten how much pleasure one can get from the simple act of expressing yourself with words. And I had always resisted the urge to blog, believing it to be the ultimate ego trip and the height of self-indulgence (well, part of me still believes in that). But a blog is also the perfect vehicle to capture our thoughts and reflect on the process of turning mere mortals into educators, as well as to hone and refine our writing skills. It helps keep us focused, organized and creative, but the greatest gift is in allowing ourselves to think back on our own education, to utilize the tools that we were given as children and adolescents in learning how to express ourselves and our ideas.

I know some in our cohort have expressed frustration and mystification as to why we have had to do certain assignments in these past three quarters, especially those that require us to dig deeper, examine our own lives and values, to consider things from the point of view of others, and to get in the daily habit of expressing ourselves in a meaningful and reflective way (and yes, I was one such doubter). Well, I am no longer a doubter. I am on the road to become a writer....once again. Look out Pinter!