Reading for Writing: Modeling the Modern Essay

“There’s a deer standing in the front hall,” she told me one quiet evening in the country. 

“ Really?” 

“No.  I just wanted to tell you something once without your saying, ‘I know.’”¹

(Annie Dillard from An American Childhood)

Introduction

That word – rigor – gives most of us a visceral reaction.  In his book “Why They Can’t Write” John Warner offers a surprisingly obvious reason for our reaction, “A body in rigor experiences a sudden, cold sensation coupled with profuse sweating, like in a fever.  Rigor mortis is stiff and dead.  Neither of these should be used to describe learning.”² So how can we fulfill the ever-present demand for educational rigor when it comes to writing without killing ourselves and our students?

If you are here reading this, then you are already an engaged educator.  Whether experienced, or newer, you already have a skill set and understanding that you bring to the classroom around the topic of reading and writing instruction.  Let’s set aside that term rigor, for now, trusting that it will be there in the end. 

Jump

Immersion into a classroom writing program, specifically a writers’ workshop, is like boldly jumping off a boat in deep water knowing you’re going to have to swim like heck to get back to shore. 

No pressure…but waiting for you on shore are a whole bunch of highly respected professionals, academics and parents; and more importantly, your colleagues and audience.  Along the way are buoys labeled 1^st Draft, 2^nd Draft, and there are people in boats cheering you on and at the ready if you flounder.  Many people jump off the boat with you, determined to meet the challenge, as well.

The cold water is refreshing…even if a little breathtaking.  You don’t think about whether you’re out of your depth…yet.  You concentrate instead on the strip of shore you have chosen.  Most of you start out with strong and sure strokes.  Initial hesitation was left back on the boat, but reality will set in independently for each swimmer.

Before you jumped you were worried about keeping pace with the others.  “Just enjoy the swim,” you told yourself sternly.  Now here you are in a moving, pulsing school of swimmers, not synchronized but surging forward.  As some start to falter, others reach out their hands, and some tread water together; when ready, each continues on.

Soon you don’t care about the shore so much, you just want to make it to that first buoy.  Some will make it easily, smoothly, apparently effortless, but their bodies as they rest there show their breathing, revealing the work.  Now calls of encouragement skim the water’s surface and all make the first marker eventually.  Congratulatory rounds and fist bumps savored, the swimmers rest before once again striking out on the next leg of the journey. 

When you finally reach the shore you might be exhausted but the feeling of triumph will be undeniable.  You will accomplish something made possible by the efforts and accomplishments of not only yourself, but all those surrounding you.  The joy of your success is sweeter for the success of all the swimmers, the whole school of you.³

Writing is about risk taking.  Acquiring skills and strategies is necessary, learning and practicing effective techniques essential, but there is significant power in doing these things within the support structure of a nurturing group.  It is scary stuff.  It is scary to reveal ourselves and our insecurities.  It is scary to mess up, fail, start over, especially in front of others.  But nobody jumps off a boat in open water thinking “no big deal,” nor would anyone expect that.  The risk is implicit and expected.  We need to acknowledge that writing is risk…and hard work...and re-do, and that is all okay.  We need to present the writing process as an ongoing journey rather than judging success on individual pieces.  We need to become a community of writers.  We can start by being honest and vulnerable with our students, writing with them along the way.  This is the work that real writers do.

While reading has always been a personal and professional passion, writing and I have had a bit of a love/hate relationship.  Growing up I was always starting to write stories, but not finishing them.  All of my favorite authors were prolific story writers.  I loved thick, heavy volumes, especially those in a series, choosing to immerse myself in that “other world” for as long as possible.  What I did not like were short stories or excerpts, especially when they were in a magazine and I couldn’t have “more.” But when it came to my own stories, I didn’t seem to have “more.” Interesting openings, descriptive scenes, dialogue, or deep character reflection: not a problem.  But a whole engaging, original story just would never develop. 

When I got involved in the Delaware Teachers’ Institute five years ago, publishing my unit gave me a purpose for writing, along with self-selected topics and an audience.  Being regularly involved in the writing process improved the quality of my writing and my confidence.

Participating in the writing seminar “Reading for Writing: Modeling the Modern Essay” for the Yale National Initiative gave me another new perspective for writing.  Essay writing was something I thought of as a scholastic task, so I easily thought of classroom applications.  But our first readings quickly indicated that essays are a large part of real-world writing that I hadn’t previously considered.  Essays are ever present in magazines, newspapers, journals, guides, blogs, and more.  Somehow, I had managed to erroneously relegate essays to the same category as the “short stories” and “story excerpts” I disliked growing up; I didn’t actually understand the specifics of a “modern essay.” I started reading essays with a new eye but still wondered what makes a “good essay” specifically. 

All of this reflection brings me to work on developing a unit at the intersection of the concrete, academic benefits of nonfiction writing and the benefits of creative writing for a purpose and an audience.  It also means selecting effective mentor texts in a variety of genres and academic levels.  By using mentor texts we benefit from the hard work (risk and rigor) those writers have already applied.  I want my students to feel valued for their writing by setting them up for success through exposure to many writing purposes and strong examples in a writing community where they feel safe and challenged.