Classroom Wall: Thinking In View

Writing is extraordinarily powerful!

Thank you, Mr. Wyborney.  As a writer, I have long believed that the Writing Process is a bunch of made-up mess.  Unlike math and science, there is no set process to writing. Writing is very much an art, and as such, it should be acceptable for writers to select their own processes.

I, too, believe there are some fundamental standards in writing as far as sentence construction and plot development are concerns, for example, but I would discourage efforts by instructors to provide too much guidance in the writing process.  Wyborney describes the process by which he came to the conclusion that prewriting is overrated - or at least misapplied.

---

Unfortunately, as I guided my students through a detailed writing process, I often found that the funnel of creativity seemed to narrow.  The open-ended power of prewriting seemed to cultivate curiosity and creativity, and then the rest of the writing process seemed to mow it down to an unwanted uniformity.

That phrase - "funnel of creativity" - resonates with me.  Indeed, funneling creativity through smaller holes stifles it at exactly a time when it should be flourishing.  As some point the prewriting must end.  In fact, there are many times when I pass over any form of formal prewriting just to get something started.

"Prewriting," I realized, did not take place before writing.  Prewriting was not preparing to write.  Prewriting was actually writing.  Initially, I thought the different forms of prewriting...all shared a common feature:  the recording of thoughts...

Prewriting is something that I blend, in my own writing, into writing itself.  Mr. Wyborney is quite eloquent in the presentation of his thoughts on the matter.  Personally, I have never followed any three- or five-step process in my writing, choosing instead to blend the steps - somethings stopping to return to the beginning for editing and revising - made all the easier with the invention of the computer - sometimes stopping to think of options for the next portion of a story or the next chapter of a nonfiction manuscript.

As I continued to write and to work with students, I eventually realized that the act of writing involves a massive intrapersonal exchange of thinking.  The refinement of thinking is spurred on by recording thoughts (in any form), and those recorded thoughts, which may come in micro-moments, continually fuel and inform the thinking.

Writing does not happen after thinking.  Writing fuels thinking, accelerates thinking, generates thinking, is thinking, and leads to more and deeper thinking.

You said it!

Some of my best thinking occurs as I write, not before I write.

The next statement is true, as well:

No wonder I felt such a sense of dissatisfaction as I guided students toward mowed-down creativity that yielded highly similar products.  I was failing to acknowledge an extraordinary process.

How many times have I advocated for just about anything besides viewing our students and teachers as products on an assembly line?  Too many to count.  Rather, I wish for my pupils to produce high-quality, creative, and one-of-a-kind products.  Why must they all write the same three-point paragraph about a particular subject?  Why can't they use their independent voices to present their latest tale?

For every student I squeeze (figuratively speaking), a different juice should drip out (Mayhaps that's not a great metaphor after all.).  Actually, I don't have to change anything that Mr. Wyborney has already written when he says the following:

As a teacher, I find that there is an unusually strong temptation to try to "make meaning for the students" by talking.  Yet when I compare any attempt to "make meaning for the students" to the power of student writing, I have a difficult time making sense of any approach in which I spend a majority of the lesson talking.

Once again, we tend to forget.  In writing, I've struggled to develop what I know about other school subjects.  In math, science, history, and reading, I keep asking my class to report about what they notice.  I quickly also ask the class to identify what they wonder.

But when it comes to writing, we often have a different approach.  We forget to ask students to notice and wonder, and we fail to engage and empower them to blaze their own trails.

I am learning to resist the temptation to make meaning for the students.  I am learning to remove my voice from the conversation and to provide space for the students to be the makers of meaning.

Wyborney goes on to observe that writing can come in shorter bursts of reflection throughout the education process.  While there's usually not enough time in the day to write about every little thing, we have tried to address some of those thoughts through our daily (ish) blogging.  We take notes throughout the day to support students' blogging, and they always have something on their minds to share with the world.

May we continue to see the steps of the writing process, but may we also understand that writers must apply their own quirks, eccentricities, and idiosyncrasies, and habits to their art!