I feel like I am at my wit’s end.  My students are taking a week to type an essay that they have had plenty of time to write,.  But that’s not the worst part.  The worst part is that there is a considerable number of students who have not even begun to write.  They hate writing, and I (as someone who loved writing) cannot understand this feeling or where it comes from.  I don;t get how someone can despise writing so much to feel as if I am tearing out their teeth with a rusty pair of pliers when I ask them to write something. 

I honestly don’t think I have ever felt that way, since writing has been a part of my life for so long.  I think I loved writing when I was a kid and I love it now.  I don’t remember ever hating to write.  Wait, that’s not entirely true.  I had an English teacher who was fond of choosing our topics for us and limiting our creativity.  I used to go to her for suggestions on stylistic ideas I had for my writing (using fiction in a nonfiction story for effect, writing a poem in the middle of my essay, etc) and she always pursed her lips at my ideas and said, “Maybe you should just stick to what we discussed.”  We being her and the remainder of the class.  So basically, what she wanted from me was an essay that looked like every one else’s. 

I think I just need to be a little more considerate of my novice writers.  The book The Tao of Writing(love it!) says that writing is natural.  It is one of our natural forms of communication.  I agree with this, but many of my students do not.  To them, writing is a foreign act that teachers force you to do in school.  Ho can I encourage my students to write outside of school, to see that writing is a natural act that they have done and always will do? I think I’m going to try some activities that show writing outside of the classroom, even outside of the professional world. 

Last night at the workshop, Sheila discussed R.A.F.T.S., an excellent writing activity for students.  R=Role, A=Audience, F=Format, T=Topic, and S=Strong Verbs.  Here is the one I designed:

R– Writer

A– Beginning Writers

F– Letter or e-mail

T– The writing process

S– inform, teach

I’m going to try this out and see how well students take on the role of “writer.”  The key is to get them to think of themselves as writers (which they are).

Until later — “There’s no turning back now that you opened up to your mind.”