Idea Control, Part 2

It might be futile to pinpoint what constitutes a great idea in a piece of writing. Like in teaching, so many factors are at play that to narrow down the multitude of possibilities to fit neatly into some eye-catching title (Five Ways to Improve Your Writing! or The 47 Things You Didn't Remember to Do Today that You Should've!) seems fraudulent.

But how do we know that we're on the right track in guiding ourselves and our students toward a more intimate understanding of how to generate compelling ideas in our writing? How do we know that we're pushing ourselves toward writing with more authority--and ultimately--with more meaning?


In Idea Control, Part 1, I wrote about the kinds of questions we want our kids asking about their writing--questions that are idea-focused rather than turn-in/teacher focused. Akin to those kinds of questions, these questions push us toward a more challenging and effective process as we're developing our ideas. In addition, deeper into the writing process, they help us self-assess, peer-review, and assess for idea control.

Here they are:

• Is the piece built around a bold claim?
• Does the piece convey an intimacy with the topic?
• Does the piece provide compelling and thorough evidence?
• Does the piece take intellectual as well as craft risks?
• Does the piece take us somewhere new?
• Does the piece convey a truth that matters beyond the borders of the page?

It is important that students understand that the terms "claim" and "evidence" do not only apply to academic writing, but to any kind of writing. A novelist presents claims and evidence through character, plot, theme, etc. No matter what form of writing my students are engaged in--poetry, fiction, business communication, academic papers--I ask them what their claim is because I want them to know the point--the truth--they are trying to drive home with their piece.

You might argue that craft risks (in question 3) belongs more comfortably in the arena of "Stylistic Control," but I feel it is an important question to begin asking early on in the process because students start to make important rhetorical decisions about how they can execute their idea on paper. Decisions such as, What motif could I use? What metaphor might capture this?

Come peer review and grading time, if the answer to most of these guiding questions is "yes," then we know we have an author who did what was necessary to not only expertly (and perhaps even artfully) convey an important idea--but to grow as writers.

Thanks for reading. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this.

Steve

This article on Writing Control is the introduction to the series.

The Pedagogy of Grief

Last week a former student of mine was murdered. Only a little over a year removed from my classroom, his life was ended by a single bullet--a bullet discharged by a gun held by another teen who wanted my former student's designer belt.

A belt.
I'm angry.

Angry because of all the love that I and my fellow teachers threw his way during what was a challenging and trying freshman year. Ticked that it seems to have been all for naught.

Angry because it's senseless. Over a belt? I'd buy all the kids in the park that night whatever belt they wanted if that gun could just stay hidden.

Angry because he was going to be a good man. You could sense it, see it in his eyes, in his smile. If he could just make it there, to manhood.

Angry because he's going to be forgotten, isn't he? His story seems to already be slipping from our memories, lost in the strong current of more kids and more guns and more senselessness.

Angry because I got choked up teaching my university students last night. While reading the final pages of Tim O'Brien's The Things They Carried, a paragraph from the end when he is describing his young friend's death, I couldn't shake the image of my former student lying on the cold grass of that park taking his last breaths. I couldn't stop imagining how his eyes must've been open and searching for some explanation that made some sense to him.

There I was in front of my students unable to proceed. The words wouldn't come. Something had risen up from somewhere deep inside of me and I felt paralyzed. Truth is, it was all I could do to not break down in front of them.

Maybe I should have. Maybe that would've made some sense. Here were twenty-five future teachers watching me succumb to my emotions. Peter, who is going to be a brilliant teacher, finished reading the last page for me because there was no way I could read those final lines. So, Peter, thank you for that.

After class, Angela, another student destined for an amazing career in her own classroom, asked about guilt--if I felt any in situations like this. I told her no.

I can't. I tried my best for him. We all did. I think I would feel profound guilt if I would've made him invisible through indifference, but we offered him the best we had; some days he accepted it, some days he didn't. But we never, ever gave up on him. Not once.

So, no--there is no guilt. Only anger.

My dear future teachers, I'm angry that people will try to somehow blame you for society's ills, for intimating that you're not trying hard enough to reach these troubled kids, for the fact that you will undoubtedly lose students who were dear to you through accident, illness, suicide.

And even murder.

I'm angry that one day, perhaps, you will decide to cut short your own classroom careers because the weights are sometimes too hard to bear. I'm angry that some of you may choose not to enter the profession because of the enormity and the seeming impossibility of the job.

Please don't. Please know that you are so vital to bringing sense to all this senselessness. Yes, you will carry weights. Many weights. But you will not carry them alone.

Peter will finish the book for you. Angela will ask a caring question. Justin will send an email. Jay will shake your hand. Shelby will read a news article to fill in the blanks you couldn't bear to read for yourself. Josh will offer his genuine sympathy.

We will never quit. Never.

Not on ourselves, not on our colleagues, not on our students--none of them. Not even the ones you know somehow are destined for an early grave. Especially not them.

Because that is the only thing that makes sense.

Thanks for reading, and thanks for helping me carry these weights.

Steve

On the Shoulders of Giants

When I began my career over twenty years ago, there were names that permeated the landscape--my landscape, at least--of the teaching of English:

Atwell.
Rief.
Ramano.
Fletcher.

It was a time in which Mrs. Atwell urged us to place ourselves literally In the Middle of our students. But she did more than that. Through her intimate journey into her classroom, she forced us to start asking many hard questions of ourselves. 

Ultimately these questions led us to one fundamental answer: student empowerment.

Which is sort of ironic because at its very core, isn't education innately about just that? None of us invite in our students and aim to lessen them by the time they leave our classrooms. None of us. It's not who we are.

But--and please believe I still find myself doing this very thing more often than I would care to admit--I make far too many choices for my students when they could be asserting their own desires. And I think for too long our profession has embraced this because it is how we were taught. We stepped into our classrooms that were mirror images of all the classrooms we'd ever stepped foot in. We embraced the status quo.

Atwell and others, though, provided another way to think about strengthening our students by giving them agency. By having them, through meaningful choices, find their voices.

And those of you brave enough to combat the pushback from what was once considered fairly radical recognize how empowering, rewarding, meaningful this paradigm shift has been. Once students trust that we are sincere in our approach--that we want them taking risks, we want them to defy our expectations, we want them all pursuing that which inspires and intrigues them--they begin to own what we had once owned for them.

*   *   *

My career's success--whatever it is--is not only due to those mentioned who are widely-famous, but to those who are more locally-famous to me. Those teachers who were still smiling and learning and loving what they did thirty or even forty years in. They inspired me when I first started out, and I find myself trying to emulate them virtually every day.

If I can see a slightly different landscape, it is only because I am still firmly seated on their shoulders.

Steve
December 1, 2016