Ch. 3 Sharing Your Writing Life

Like many of my classmates, I was struck by the opening phrase "You're not a writer, so maybe you'll just skip this chapter."  I am not sure I have ever considered myself a writer.  I often think less of what I write than the people who read it.  Most of the time, the readers are teachers.

I said in my post about chapter 2, that it is important to teach kids all kinds of writing including essays, poems, stories, lists, instructions, advertisements, etc.  Routeman says to take a close look at how we think, compose, revise, edit and publish our own writing in order to better inform our selves for teaching our students.

Routeman also suggests that a teacher observes the students and talks with them regarding writing.  When the teacher shares their writing life, the student will be more likely to do the same.  In fact, this chapter covered what the teacher should do to prepare themselves as a teacher of writing. 

If we don't know our own writing habits, how can we teach writing to our students?  If we don't like writing, how long are we going to be able to fake enjoyment, and how long are the kids going to fall for the fake enjoyment of writing?

One aspect of looking at our own writing habits that I didn't think of was that of actually struggling with your writing in front of the students.  Instead of having a pre-written paper ready to go with pre-decided mistakes made, why not do the writing in front of the class?  Let them see you rearrange and change, fix and rewrite.  I heard once that you should learn from the mistakes of others because you don't have time to make them all yourself.  I know it is hard for me to let my students see me struggle.  I am the teacher, I am supposed to know this stuff and not struggle with it.