Building Writers

So, we know that building community is key, but what does it mean to build a community of writers? As a pre-service English teacher, and as a TA for a freshman writing course, I feel like that phrase, "community of writers" is always getting thrown around by my professors and by readings I've done for class. But what does it actually mean? I have had to start by questioning, "What do we mean by community?" and "What do we mean by writers?" and "How do we bring those two together?"

A community is most often defined as a group of people in close proximity to each other. However, it can also be defined as a feeling of fellowship with others. In my future classroom, I hope to create student communities where fellowship, kindness, support, and courage abound. Ideally, students in a community of writers will learn together, take risks together, and grow together. Students in a community of writers are neighbors. They're friends. They're family.

Now, what do we mean by writers? If it's not already obvious, a writer is anyone who writes! But who writes? Hopefully everyone writes at one point or another. Of course, we have writers in our English classrooms, but there are communities of writers everywhere you look--on social media, group texts, email chains, online forums, etc. Writing is one of our main forms of communication so it's important that our students know how to do it--and do it well.

When it comes to actually helping student writers improve, one of the most valuable things teachers can give to students is time. More specifically, time spent writing! Stacey Shubitz and Lynne Dorfman have said, "To firmly establish a community of writers, students will need daily time for uninterrupted writing, time to talk about their writing processes, time for writerly conversations, time for conferring and collaboration, and time for reflection." (See Further Reading 1). In my preservice English teaching classes, one of my favorite things has been our daily time spent in our writers' notebooks. Having scheduled time each day to write and to share has not only helped me to grow as a writer, but it's helped me to feel more comfortable sharing my work with my classmates. I think there's a lot of value in giving students time to write about things that are important to them in a free-write style, and then allowing them to share with others as they feel comfortable. This practice, to me, is the essence of building writers while also building community.

Another way to help students to grow as writers is for teachers to grow right along side them. With so many educators pushing for authenticity in the classroom, it's no question that teachers are being encouraged to be ever more authentic. Anne Whitney says, "In a writing classroom, authenticity of teachers and students means showing students what our real, unfinished, in-process writing looks like, and it means engaging in real tasks and writing those for real readers. But it also means being real people while we do it." You don't have to share EVERY detail from your personal life, "but your writing can't all be about puppies, and you can't be such a big and powerful and perfect adult that everything looks easy for you." (See Further Reading 2). I love the idea of a teacher actually writing in front of the class in a think-aloud style, to show students that it takes a lot of brainwork for us, too. We can be vulnerable and show our students what our writing processes look like. We can show students not just polished final drafts, but the journey we take to get there.

Regarding authenticity, Whitney further says, "This means a classroom that is untidy. It means students not finishing, or finishing things that aren't in the genre we had planned or as long as we had planned. It means starting over it means sitting with a writer while she bravely tries to loosen her grip on the unusable words she has just written--words that were not easy to come by in the first place. It means tears when the writing goes somewhere difficult and unexpected. It means goofy writing and laughs, because young people are actually really goofy and laugh a lot. It means mistakes; it means frustrations. It means being brave; it means taking chances."

I have seen writers blossom as they have felt comfortable writing about what matters to them. I have experienced emotional healing as I have written and shared about difficulties from my own life. I have developed empathy and love for my fellow classmates who have courageously shared their struggles with me through writing. While many of these experiences have happened in classrooms, I think students need to be involved in communities of writers now to prepare them for future experiences in which they will be involved in writing communities. They need models of positive engagement. They need to see how important it is to cheer others on and to receive feedback and encouragement themselves. They need to see that writing is a messy process. They need to know that they have support, strategies and ways to keep going, even when it gets hard. They need to know that there are ways to overcome the obstacles that happen, and that they are not bad for not being able to do it on their own.

Writing doesn't happen in a bubble. It's a social act! We need readers, we need people to respond, we need each other. We need a community. I have found community and friendships and goodness through blogs. I have connected with people I never would have met, I have learned from others, I have been entertained, I have had ideas come to me as I have engaged with others. And that's why I started this blog. I wanted to create a space for community. A space for a community to talk about how to build a better community of writers. I hope to make an impact in my students' lives. I hope to do this by joining with them in a community of writers. I can do this by writing alongside my students. I can believe in them. I can show them that I think and know that they are smart--that they are capable. Because they are thinkers. So they can be writers too. I can share my writerly self with them. And I hope they will share with me and with their peers so we can all grow together. We need authenticity and we need vulnerability so that we can be seen and feel valued.

While the pandemic has surely caused complications for English teachers in a variety of ways, there have also been wonderful opportunities to put writing skills to good use. MC Walker talks about the value of writing when it comes to virtual connection and collaboration for peers and teachers. She says, "While working to design collaborative group work in the e-Learning setting, I began to notice that the most insightful conversations weren't happening in response to my prompts, but between my students in their comments to one another. When responding to peers, my students naturally embedded quotations, personally connected, and posed questions to one another. These are skills we work on in class, but I have never seen my students so deftly use them in the traditional classroom setting." (See Further Reading 3). Walker brings up a good point, revealing that teachers can certainly capitalize on authentic writing opportunities that arise simply because of the online teaching format. Chat functions can become homes for authentic writing, for the practice of new skills, as well as for building a stronger community of writers.

XOXO,

Abby

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