Georgia Heard On Writing Instruction

I’m fresh off the Massachusetts Reading Association’s annual reading conference, but I only say fresh because it comes with the saying. Actually, I’m whooped from driving to Quincy from western PA and back again in two-and-a-half days, with a full day of sessions and presentations thrown in. But tired as I am, the conference is still very much on my mind.  

One of the many conference highlights was Georgia Heard’s keynote address. Regarding her talk on writing and children and schools, here are some of the statements that resonate with me. They are paraphrased, voiced as I remember them, and then mixed with my personal observations and comments, which I tried to contain within brackets. I hope to remember Georgia’s keynote points well enough to use them naturally in my work with teachers and students in the upcoming school year. 

• Writing instruction is all about helping students find their writing wings, helping them to find a purpose for their writing.

• Children are curious about the world and this makes for a wonderful starting point for writing.  Curiosity, authenticity, and experience are much better starting points than one-size-fits-all writing prompts such as “Write an essay explaining what ‘dress for success means to you” or “write an explanation about what is good and bad about playing on a school sports team.” 

• Writers should care about what they are writing about. Good writing springs from experience. Children respond to the authentic. [As I reflect on my collection of poems for children and families, I realize every poem springs from my experience: my niece Morgan’s fear of bugs (A Bug, A Bug), my nephew Aaron’s sound making (My Brother, The Sound Maker), cooking meals for the Fresh Air kids (Eating Spaghetti), and so on.]

• Revision is writing, and writing is revision. You don’t wait until the end to revise. You revise as you go along.

• Even with technology, writing is very much with us. 20% of all college students keep a blog.  [This statistic surprised me.  Georgia also mentioned that kids are constantly texting and this connects them to writing. I wonder about this connection, however. Texting might have more in common with talking than with writing, much as a panda has more in common with a raccoon than a bear or the music of John Cage has more in common with philosophy than music.  However, texting as talking as communication does mean you can bring it all back to writing.]

• Authentic writing is often a joy to read. [I love reading student writing for its authentic, fresh nature.  I often think of Cecil, a student in my learning support class, who cut from a magazine a tire advertisement that showed a picture of a baby, swaddled in a blue blanket, sitting and smiling within a Goodyear radial.  Cecil used that picture as a starting point for his story, which began, “Once there was a baby, happy and mild, who lived in a tire.”]

• Teachers are aiming for consistent, meaningful, daily writing that exists within a culture of writing. [This is one of my favorite thoughts.  I live the idea of a classroom’s culture of writing, which helps reduce the idea of writing as an “assignment” and promotes the idea of writing as daily living, writing as regular communication, and writing as an enjoyable act of creation.]

• Keeping a writer’s notebook encourages conversations with your self. When it comes to students, teachers can promote the use of writing notebook categories such as “phrases I like,” “observations,” “ideas,” and “awesome things.” Snippets of thought recorded in various categories are the seeds from which longer writing pieces and projects grow.

• Kids writing poetry: an especially powerful entrance to writing for struggling readers / writers.  Why? Poetry can be short and there are minimal rules.

• To help students become writers, find a mentor text. Show students how they can connect to their favorite books, which show them the how and why of good writing. To become a writer, find a book you love.  Take in what good writing sounds like, looks like, feels like.  Ask students, “Why did you chose this book as your mentor text?” “What writing craft tool did this mentor text teach you?”  For example, for adults the writing of Annie Lamont teaches humor, natural voice, and observation.  Look at books for endings.  How did a book end?  Did it end with feeling?  Or maybe surprise?

• Successful writers have established a voice, know and express their purpose, have confidence, and feel like writers always.