Attention Students: You Are All Writers!

Ready, Set… 

            One of the most important things that we can teach our students as teachers of authentic writing is that they are ALL writers. The National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE) even lists this as one of their guiding principles. Under Principle 2.1: Everyone is a writer, they state: “Everyone has the capacity to write. Writers are not static. They develop skills and enhance their writing skills throughout their writing lives; thus, writers grow continually. Becoming a better writer requires practice. The more writers write, the more familiar it becomes. As writers, sometimes they feel confident; at other times, they may feel afraid and insecure. Therefore, students learn to write by writing.” Therefore, the importance of us as teachers to instill confidence in our students can’t be overlooked. Here are five things I believe we can do as teachers to ensure that they not only begin to view themselves as writers, but also gain confidence in themselves as writers:

And Away We Go…

1. Asking students what type of writing they do in their daily lives is effective in showing them that they are already writers.

            One of the most prominent forms of writing most students already engage in is social media writing. However, many students might not even consider this to be a form a real writing. As Ken Lindblom wrote in his 2015 post for the blog Writers Who Care, “Some may scoff at the significance of social media writing, but when students write on social media they are devising something to say, considering how to best say it to their intended audience, and they engage the results of their writing (that is, they either see that they are understood or they must rewrite it, so they are understood). This is real writing.”  Therefore, if this is explained to students, they might begin to reassess their roles as writers and begin to change their views on what constitutes real writing.

2. Exposing students to various forms of writing and having them emulate these forms can be effective.

            Just as the NCTE notes, writing is all about practice and writing in different forms can help students prepare for writing outside of the classroom as well. In another Writers Who Care post from 2014 titled Writing in the Work World, the authors Ann D. David, Dorothy Meiburg Weller, and Amber Funderburgh list a range of writing found from various areas of work. Compiling a list such as the one featured in the aforementioned blog post might help students who don’t believe that they are writers or that they will need writing in the future reconsider their position. This type of exposure to writing can also allow students to write to different audiences, something that traditional writing instruction fails to include as students are exclusively asked to only write to their teacher.

3. Talking with students throughout their writing processes is a great way to make them feel like real writers.

            Just like in the real world, a writing process normally involves a multitude of people fulfilling various roles. Unfortunately, the writing process most students are used to is a very lonely experience. By simply asking students how their process is going, they will begin to view themselves as writers who belong to a larger writing community. Jim Burke excels at this and even includes his students’ voices in his book The Six Academic Writing Assignments: Designing the User’s Journey. These accounts from students exemplify how effective this method is in getting students to talk and think like real writers. I might implement this by sitting with students one-on-one and simply asking them how their writing process is going. Students are very rarely asked questions about assignments directly and by giving them that opportunity it can allow them to start thinking metacognitively about their writing.

4. Creating a writing community within the classroom is of the upmost importance when trying to get students to view themselves as real writers.          

            One of my favorite aspects of writing is getting to collaborate with others, something I really didn’t start doing until I entered college. When I used to follow my writing process alone, I would constantly feel insecure in what I was writing, and that doubt would sometimes have a negative impact on the final product. By collaborating with others, I am able to get feedback and revise things that are unclear to the reader. Furthermore, by having another person read my work out loud, I am able to pick up on things that are awkward or need further clarification. Therefore, if students feel like they belong to a writing community and collaborate with one another frequently, they will begin to feel, think and act like real writers.

5. Modeling your own writing process in front of students can help them view themselves as real writers and further the creation of a positive writing community.

            Oftentimes, students view their teachers as all-knowing and infallible beings that exist only to educate. By modeling a writing process for our students, they will begin to realize that teachers are people just like them and can make mistakes. Modeling also comes with the chance that students will see their teacher perform something similar to their own writing process which can give them confidence in their own writing. It also opens the floor for students to provide feedback to a person in a position of authority which can help them realize they are real writers with a voice that matters and help them address a different audience.

To Infinity and Beyond!

            The list of ways we as teachers can help students feel like, think like, and talk like real writers is impossible to capture in a single blog post. I think the single most important thing we as teachers can instill in our students’ heads is that we don’t have to teach them how to be writers because they already are writers. Our job is to get them to internalize that feeling and give them the confidence necessary for them to continue to succeed as writers.