Educators as Writers: Other People's Words
(Or How I Started Writing as a Professional)
My first blog post was a pasted email message I had copied from an author.
That author, Jim Trelease, had written one of my favorite educational resources when I was teaching, The Read Aloud Handbook. Trelease, a journalist by trade, made his case to both educators and parents with research, logic and his own experience raising two kids. The book saved me time trying to find literature not just for reading aloud but also as models for writing.
It also sparked my interest in writing as a professional. I share this as, up until then, I was hesitant to write anything publicly about my work as an educator. My reluctance came from the typical sources:
Fear of being judged,
Fear of saying the wrong thing, or
Not believing I had anything worth sharing.
So, I used someone else’s words (appropriately cited, of course) as an entry point into my own writing practice. What motivates a professional to decide to write about their work? Certainly to share ideas with others. But we also seek validation of our ideas. Education is complex, and it is often difficult to find confirmation within our immediate environment.
Writing is also process-oriented; by putting words down on paper or screen, we discover what we really wanted to say. We clarify our thinking. Even in this article, the idea that my entry point into public writing was “someone else’s words” did not occur to me until I wrote them. Now I am thinking about potential lessons where students are provided prompts originally from published literature, and they have to continue the story. Using someone else’s words happens all the time in nonfiction writing. If someone with credibility said it better than me, why not include what they wrote?
Yet to get started with one’s writing practice, we have to start practicing with our own writing. Maybe it starts as an email message (these writing missives did; I was emailing tips to colleagues during this year’s book study. The response was positive so I started posting them here.) Maybe it is writing in a $2 spell-write steno book with a Bic pen.
What’s important is to get started. The more we do something, the more our actions become our identity - being a writer vs. I am writing. As James Clear notes,
“Every action you take is a vote for the type of person you wish to become. No single instance will transform your beliefs, but as the votes build up, so does the evidence of your new identity.” (38).
As my predecessor noted, you start to believe it as you achieve it. Every time we write, we reinforce a renewed version of ourselves.
Once we get started, we must keep going. Most of our writing can initially be tucked away in a journal or organized within a loose file on our computer. One starting point is our stories from school. What sticks in your memory from 10 years ago? Write it out. What is frustrating you the most about this year? Document it.
What also helps is to lower our expectations. Cris Tovani encourages her students to write “barf drafts''. (Anne Lamott suggests a less refined version.) The idea is, our fears are less likely to get in the way. We have no expectations to publish anything. As writer Natalie Goldberg notes about practicing writing,
“When you write, don’t say, ‘I’m going to write a poem.’ That attitude will freeze you right away. Sit down with the least expectation of yourself; say, ‘I am free to write the worst junk in the world.’ You have to give yourself the space to write without a lot of destination."(11)
Likely, our own first words are a version of someone else’s words. They came from your mind, yes, but where did your mind find them? From what you have read, from what you have seen and heard on television and online, from the people you interact with. If what you write is eventually worth being published, it will need to go through a revision process anyway, in which you can better shape the language to truly make it your own.
So we must get started, and we must keep going. But where are we going? Why get started? There should be a destination - our reward - and that destination should be clear.
The simplest way I have discovered for creating clarity around our goal for writing was provided by William Kenower:
“The only two questions a writer should ask are the following: ‘What do I want to say?’ and ‘Have I said it?’ If you are asking anything else, you’re not writing - you’re just worrying.” (53)
Of course, writing is a bit more complex than that, but the point being made is a good one. Writers write with purpose and our first audience is ourselves: our internal sense of quality that can only lead to true satisfaction.
Recommended Reading
I read James Clear’s Atomic Habits twice last year. He excels in breaking down complex ideas into more understandable explanations and concepts.
Cris Tovani’s new educational resource Why Do I Have to Read This? is a must read for all educators - not just secondary ELA teachers. You can listen to my conversation with her earlier this week here.
Anne Lamott’s Bird by Bird is as much a memoir as a writing guide. I appreciate her humor and frankness about the writing life.
On the top of my list for favorite books on writing is Natalie Goldberg’s Writing Down the Bones. It was recommended by James Clear in his newsletter. Goldberg’s guide offers a lot of suggestions for practicing writing that can lead to improvement.
Likewise, William Kenower’s Fearless Writing provides advice for any resistance to this work. (The subtitle here emulates his chapter titles.)
This article continues our Educators as Writers series, Part 2 of 3. Full subscribers will receive three writing tips in January, plus an opportunity to join colleagues and me for a writers circle to offer feedback on each others’ drafts via Zoom.