The Northern Nevada Writing Project

On Writing by Stephen King
Last May when I discovered that I had to read a book on writing I knew two things: one, I didn’t want to read anything that read like a textbook, and two, I didn’t know of any books on writing that met this requirement! I immediately asked the Creative Writing teacher at my school for suggestions and he recommended Stephen King’s book, with the disclaimer that he hadn’t actually read it himself, but heard it was pretty good. I promptly bought the book, put on my shelf at home, and forgot about it!

I have read some of King’s books, but wouldn’t consider myself a big fan; although, The Shining, which I read during my senior year in high school, was absolutely compelling—this I believed was literature!

It surprised me that King asks himself in the forward “why did I want to write about writing? What made me think I had anything worth saying?” He is accomplished, and even if you don’t like his writing, you must admit that he must know something about his art and craft that is worth sharing. King shares his craft and even discusses how it is similar and different from other writers. He tells the reader what works for him and why, but insists that we find what works for us. He gives specific examples of writers who are different than him, but were and are successful. I guess, if I’m honest, I have asked similar questions. How can I teach writing? What makes me believe I have anything of worth to offer students on the subject?
The book is written in a memoir format which captured me immediately. I found that the snippets he retold from his life brought memories to the surface that I hadn’t thought about in years. I wanted to put aside the book and just remember my own stories and wonder if I could tell them as well as he does his. King’s philosophy about writing is simple and he states it early on, it is “my attempt to show how one writer was formed. Not how one writer was made; I don’t believe writers can be made, either by circumstances or by self-will…” He demonstrates how his experiences formed him as a person and how that pours out of him in his writing.

As King explained his approach to writing, I realized that my approach is often very similar. He doesn’t plan out his plot or outline, but instead sits down and lets it pour out of him. I might do some clustering, but for the most part I just sit down and write. Then I go back and re-write, edit, and ultimately clean up my creation. Most textbooks suggest the pre-writing and organizing approaches, so I have offered these to students believing these were the “correct” ways to write, even though they didn’t generally work for me. I’m sure the structure is useful for some writers, but it’s nice to know that I’m not the only one who does it differently. I too have discovered that writing is more art than science.

Like King, I often don’t know what I’m going to write till I begin; although, I usually have spent a lot of time considering my subject and where it might take me. I generally discover my story as it unfolds and often it is different from what I first imagined I would write. King states, “good story ideas seem to come quite literally from nowhere, sailing at you right out of the empty sky: two previously unrelated ideas come together and make something new under the sun. Your job isn’t to find these ideas but to recognize them when they show up.” He compares the writer to a fossil hunter. We find the buried fossil and as we slowly and carefully unearth it, the details emerge and we begin to recognize it.

I enjoyed the book because he gives sound advice on almost every aspect of writing. Even when I disagree with him on some point, I understand his perspective. King criticizes writing classes, but I can understand his criticisms even when I don’t agree. I have to remember that King is writing a book for people who are interested in becoming writers or better writers, not a classroom manual. It’s not that I can’t use his advice in my class, but that’s not his first audience and one thing King is a master of, is knowing his audience. His goal is to help aspiring writers develop a toolbox to use in their writing, which is our goal as writing teachers/coaches well. He uses this toolbox metaphor as he teaches his audience in very straightforward and effective manner. I also liked his rule which he learned as a high school student working for a small town newspaper: 2nd Draft = 1st Draft – 10%. I hate to cut from my work (I recognize my overly verbose nature), but cutting and pruning are necessary and he even gives an example from his own work on his book 1408.
Ultimately King insists “(i)f you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.” He also explains how important it is to have someone believe in you and your writing. For many of our students, we are the only ones who believe they can write (many haven’t bought what they believe is our “lie” yet). What they need is encouragement and guidance, not an editor marking up the page (which is what I had in school).

I enjoyed this book and had a difficult time putting it down. I highlighted parts and went back and re-read parts that I thought were particularly effective. I believe it’s a book that would be great for a creative writing class. I also believe that reading key passages to students would help them recognize that writing is work, albeit rewarding work, even for those who are published and seem to be gifted.
My questions are:
1. Does too much structure in pre-writing/writing hinder the process? Is the structure really necessary? How much is too much?
The writing assignments in Read 180 are highly structured, but many of these students are reading at very low levels and their writing skills are also very low, so is it okay to use a strong scaffolding and structure for them till they are able to let it fall away and stand on their own? (The 9 Rights of Every Writer argues that structured writing is never a good idea)
2. How can I help students discover the approach to writing that works best for them?
3. I wonder, how many of us use structured pre-writing to plan our writing…

tcasper

How to Write Your Life Story, by Ralph Fletcher (Tim)
I read this paperback, along with a couple of others in this series by Ralph Fletcher, including How Writer’s Work, Finding a Writing Process that Works for You, and Poetry Matters, Writing a Poem From the Iniside Out. The books are supposed to be written at a level so intermediate elementary students and above can read them, or at least you could use it as a read aloud.
The book is quick and easy reading (at least for an adult), written in a narrative style. It has specific activies, but in general it’s more of an overview and an inspiration book about writing a memoir or autobiography. It includes the idea of the “Neighborhood Map” idea that we did the first day of summer ISI. It also includes a related activity called a “Heart Map.” I tried both at Anderson with 5th graders, and the results were great. Many kids invested time into the maps. We then did a piece about a “personal memory.” I think the maps were a great pre-writing activity.
If you’re looking for lots of specific lesson plans, this probably isn’t the book for you. Again, it’s more about ideas that you can develop into your own plans. The book also includes interviews with authors, as do all the books in the series, such as Jack Gantos. The ideas are applicable for all ages, probably 4th grade to adult.
One “criticism” about the book(s) is it has a strong white, middle-classs point of view. Most of the examples are about growing up in New England, playing baseball, eating apple pie, playing in the forest by the creek, and curling up in a “nook” in the kitchen by the roaring fire with your writers notebook writing about the snow falling on cedars. Nothing at all wrong with that, but I think it would be hard many of the students at Anderson to relate to that kind of “writer’s life.”
Overall, for $5.99 and if nothing else but a breezy and inspiring read, How to Write You Life Story is well worth taking a look at.

(This post was originally posted as a comment, accidently)

From NNWP’s 2008 Summer Institute, 2008/09/06 at 11:46 AM

The entire reason that I wanted to be a part of the writing project this summer was an epiphany I had. 

When I started college I had a hard time adjusting to scientific writing.  I had always been considered a good writer in high school.  It was really depressing for me, then, when I started college and all of the things that made me a good writer were now considered my “faults”: rich descriptions, deep vocabulary, and well-structured paragraphs (according in my high school teachers).

I desperately believed that I was meant to be a scientist, so I buckled down like a good little girl and proceeded to forget everything I had previously learned about writing and began following the scientific standard: concise, brief, no adjectives that can’t be quantified. 

When I became a teacher, I decided that I would be doing my students a favor if I taught them about writing the way I had learned it in college.  I didn’t want any of them to receive the same rude awakening that I had when I showed up in college.  So, I set out to create a procedure for writing scientifically. 

However, I found myself in middle school and in an effort to meet my student’s developmental level, I started creating projects that demonstrated creative writing techniques.  I of course never wanted to be really teaching them writing…but I really wanted to let my students incorporate something I knew they were good at with their scientific knowledge. 

Here’s the epiphany: why does science writing have to be boring? 

I have never gotten very involved with the writing process, however.  So, the book I looked at had several ideas for incorporating writing and reading into everyday science pedagogical methods.  Several of the techniques that I use already.  However, Lesley Wing Jan also promoted the idea of writing narratives of what students learn as they follow procedures of a lab.  Huh, what a concept.  She actually wrote, “Expressive and descriptive language must not be sacrificed for more precise scientific language”.  Her classes are younger than mine, but her idea is that students make connections to develop the concrete knowledge through the process of the narrative.  I’m feeling a little trepidatious about the whole thing, but I think I can do it…

So, my questions are: do I need to teach the narrative exactly like my Language Arts teacher does or can I develop my own technique?  Can I forgo my scientific lab reports for narratives as  part of data collection or should it be separate?  As a scientist, I like things to be pretty uniform…usually for each lab I do a write-up with data collection.  But could I start doing narratives instead in some instances or with demonstrations? 

Hi! After fighting with my passwords, here goes.

I read The Performance of Self in Student Writing by Thomas Newkirk. It it, the author explores the ways that student writers (at the college level) present themselves in academic writing. He says that they are not actually expressing their personal views, experiences, or opinions as much as they are inventing their presentation of themselves according to the text they are responding to or within their interpretations of the assignment or target audience.

Newkirk draws from his observations of his own college freshmen’s writing projects, and the dialogs and analyses were interesting. But what interested me most was the chapter “Composition Wars and the Place of Personal Writing.” Often, it seems that college students are told that there is no place for themselves in their academic work. Expressions of emotion, care, expressions of curiosity are looked upon as too sentimental for the academy. Even my own students sometimes tell me that they were told that they must not use “I” or “me” in their essays.

I think that some academic writing might not be appropriate for expressions of self–a lab report, for example–but I’ve noticed that many of the studies I’ve read in educational journals do include the human behind the writing. I think it works well, and I ask my students to bring their own experiences and observations into their academic work.

So what do you think? I know that helping students learn to write by letting them write what they feel and know is a great way to get them writing and learning the traits. But must they move away from the personal once they enter college? Is the prohibition against personal writing in the academy a just fading phase? (I remember being taught in college never to say “I think” or “I believe” because if I wrote it, the instructor would know that i thought it or believed it, and then being told later in college that I must because it was more honest.) Can academic writing be just as effective when the writer makes an appearance there? Does personal expression have any place in a research paper or a literary response?

For my money, I’d rather read student writing–any writing, really–with a bit of the writer in it.

Dawnne

Hey Fellow Writers!

I just realized that the book I am doing has also been started by Kristina. She does a great overview of what this book is about. I have to agree with her on all levels. Her is what I want to discuss about this book.

Why is writing such a scary process? Why do we (or our students) assume that because it takes time we are ‘poor’ writers? Why is the importance of writing not as obvious to everyone as it is to some?

It all started when I told my co-teacher that I was going to take the Northern Nevada Writing Project Summer Invitational back in May. I expressed to her how worried I was to have to actually write in front of so many others and wondered if I was up to the challenge. She giggled and told me I had to read this book, Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott.  I put it off through most of summer until about a month ago. Then, as I began to read I wondered how I had not read this years ago. All the scary things that go on every time I write anything even semi-formal. Then, as I was reading, I had this epiphany. If I was feeling insecure about my writing what must my students feel like? So this year, I started off writing with excerpts from the book. I read them aloud to my class. In particular the chapters “Shitty First Drafts”, ” Index Cards” and “Calling Around”. The new element of teaching writing for me, is being honest about their feelings, reaffirming their fears and reminding them that everything is a process…including writing and that it is a process for EVERYONE.

Do we always try to find ways to understand our student’s weaknesses or fears and then try to show them how noraml that truley is? If we were constantly doing this, would student’s feel like they were understood, feel more equal to the content and possibly strive to do better?

In Bird by Bird, Anne Lamott has a unique gift to make every writer feel like they are all on the right track. She reaffirms a writer’s fears and accomplishments through laughter and sorrow, and yes some religious undertones.

She says it best when she quotes Henry James. “A writer is someone on whom nothing is lost,” while looking for his glasses, and that they were on top of his head. We might feel out of whack, confused and unsure if we can truley write soemthing wonderful (both our students and ourselves) but we are never lost and  information and stories and never lost (even though the wrieter may feel that way. Sometimes we just need a little reaffirmation.

So again I ask: Why is writing such a scary process? Why do we (or our students) assume that because it takes time we are ‘poor’ writers? Why is the importance of writing not as obvious to everyone as it is to some? Are there other novels about writing that we can include in our curriculum to make the writing process less intimidating?

Hi everyone!  Julie here, and I chose a book that several people have recommended to me.  I have been meaning to read this book for a long time and my only regret is that I didn’t read it sooner.  It is a small book and an easy read.  Ralph Fletcher packed numerous good writing strategies into a small package and wrapped it with delightful and inspiring samples illustrating the strategies that he spoke to.  It took me a little longer to get through the book because as I read I made notes in my own journal.  I made notes on stories and events that I had forgotten about until I read the book and thought about the questions that Ralph Fletcher posed.  For example, in discussing using your senses to collect “mind pictures” he points out that every house has its own distinct smell.  He asks, “exactly how would you describe the smell of your grandmother’s house?”  The first thought I had was stinky smoke.  My grandmother smoked in the house a lot.  But, as I let the question take me back to my grandmother’s house, the memories weren’t of a stinky house.  They were of warmth, welcoming, safety and comfort.  It amazed me how a simple question could trigger so many stories. 

The book is presented in a manner that makes it easy to teach from.  It is simple, yet effective.  Fletcher presents a strategy and then uses stories to illustrate his point.  I have already read a couple of his stories to my students to help them understand how the strategy can help them with their writing.  The strategies presented are to help develop a strong, effective writer’s notebook, but many of the strategies could be used as individual lessons.   

Throughout the book, Fletcher discusses the benefits of capturing your thoughts, dreams, observations, and experienced in a notebook, but stresses that there is no right way to create the notebook because it must be uniquely you.  He does explain that a writer’s notebook is not a diary nor is it a reading journal.  He discusses the way different people have kept their writer’s notebook; he also discusses how prefers to write everything in a notebook just using paper and pencil with nothing fancy.  Fletcher mentions that there are a few writers that prefer not to keep a writer’s notebook.  This year I plan to teach the writer’s notebook to the 4^th and 5^th grade students.  The strategies used to develop the notebook are good writing strategies and can be applied to any writing.  So, I feel that the students are getting a double benefit and perhaps it is something that they will choose to continue throughout  their lives.  I am looking forward to seeing the students’ response to the notebook.  Their interest and development as writers will help me determine if I will continue with the notebook next year.  That leads me to my question to you.  Do you think it is worth the time and effort to teach students how to keep a writer’s notebook?  A place to keep “seeds” for future writings. 

Hello writers gone astray.  Hope your summer has been lovely.  I found a book that would supplant the many fine friends and days we spent together when you inspired me to write on various topics.  The book is a mix of ideas for making your writing better and inspirational quotes to help you write (all of the things we did together for a few weeks).  I think this book would be a nice addition for your professional library as well as your personal book shelf.  There are tips for writing dialogue, structure, style, editing, etc.  For example, one of the hints about improving your writing is a small vignette about “How much are you willing to throw away?”  The author discusses how she struggled with a story for months because she couldn’t part with the first line.  Once she found the courage the story took different turns and twists, but ended up being worthy.  I agree that throwing away words, lines, paragraphs can be challenging- it feels like you are betraying the voice that brought them to life, but then I remember how great it was to dissect that story of Amanda’s (her scary walk in New York).  I think this piece of advice “be willing to throw something out” is worth sharing with students not only about their writing, but about thier life story.  So fellow writers, how do you approach throwing out part or pieces of your writing? 

On the inspirational side, I like many of the tips, but several of them are written as horoscopes:          ” Your prized possession will end up in someone else’s hands”; “Somebody close to you will tell your secret.”; “Unwanted information comes to you through a surprising channel”.  And finally, like some of the other lit. share samples, this book has fun images to inspire writing.  Check it out.  See you soon, Yvette

Greetings!  I chose Ralph Fletcher’s book “Boy Writers:  Reclaiming Their Voices” for two reasons.  One—I really like the guy.  He writes approachable books about teaching writing in the classroom.  They are fun to read and they include tips and practical ways of making writing really happen in the classroom.  Two—I have lots of apathetic boys in my classroom and was hoping to find some ideas to get my boys more engaged in learning and writing.

Reasons to read the book:  Fletcher taught in the classroom for many years.  He has lots of stories and is never out of touch with practicing teachers.  He has four sons.  Need I say more?  He is funny—you can read this book cover to cover and actually enjoy it.   He surveyed teachers (who he believes to be excellent writing teachers) and boy students to find out what they have to say.  The answers are honest and suggestions real. 

Questions for you:

1. From his survey for teachers: “In general my (boys/girls/equal) tend to enjoy writing more.”
2. What would you guess the difference is between boys’ and girls’ writing test scores to be?
3. What does writing and writing and boys look like in your classroom?
4. What has worked for you and the boy writers in your classroom?

Hey NNWP peeps- it’s Caroline!  So, I have a hunch that many of you have heard of both the author and this book, but for me, it was a first, and a great hands-on book that I can implement in the classroom daily.  Goldberg went on a spiritual journey to “unleash the writer within,” practicing Zen and what she calls, “writing as a spiritual practice.:  It’s almost like a cleansing of all the words inside of her, but she breaks down this vast idea into small chapters of advice for the struggling writer.  What I most enjoyed about this book is that throughout, she takes a rather humble tone and doesn’t dare to write a how-to book, but rather puts herself out there as a vulnerable writer who doesn’t have all the answers- she’s real, not lofty, and I liked that- her witty sense of humor is worth it as well.

  So, I decided immediately to write down specific chapters, which seriously are most of them, and use them immediately in my newly developed “Sacred Writing Time” in the classroom.  I found myself writing down all kinds of ideas and quotes, but the main one I want to instill is that we need to listen first, and then write- meaning, “the deeper you can listen, the better you can write.”  Ain’t that the truth?  Not only do I think this will help us become better writers, but also find our inner peace (clearly the Zen factor is working with this woman- probably why I was drawn to her book).

Another favorite chapter called “Syntax” involves taking a “boring” piece of writing, pulling out 3-4 sentences, arbitrarily adding punctuation (E.E. Cummings) and not trying to make sense of it, but reading it aloud as though it were saying something.  She writes that we think in sentences and the way we think is the way we see; therefore, releasing the syntax order, we release energy and are able to see the world from a new perspective- the poem examples in the chapter rock, especially the story behind the authors!

    Seriously, an easy, but very in-depth and fulfilling read.  I plan to use all of the book in my sacred writing time, but of course, time constraints are a big concern.  If I only see students 50 minutes a day, plus 30 minutes once a week, how can I build consistent quality writing time into my lessons?  I am struggling.  The books we read this summer often talked about a need for at least 20-30 minutes daily, or else it wasn’t worth it- what do you think and what are your experiences?

     I sign off with a favorite Goldberg (my new BFF) quote: “Though death is howling at our backs and life is roaring at our faces, we can just begin to write, simply begin to write what we have to say.”

Hi.  Amy here and I am starting a new discussion on Educating Everybody’s Children: What Research and Practice Say about Improving Achievement. This book was put of by ASCD-Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development and edited by Robert W. Cole. I can’t lie and say that reading this book cover to cover is a good idea. However, it is formatted in a way that allows you to skip around and learn instructional strategies that are directed related to your area of concern.  The book addresses many topics but really focuses on diverse teaching strategies for diverse learners with focuses in the areas of reading, writing, math and oral communication. I will outline some of the basic points discussed in the book to enlighten you as to the tone of my summer reading.

Writing strategies that promote achievement according to ASCD:

Provide opportunities to write, Use writing in all subject areas, Encourage reading, Use authentic writing tasks/writing topics, Use numerous examples of good writing, Model writing process, Using conferencing and peer view, Provide criteria for evaluation, Include contextual instruction in grammar, Use writing portfolios

This book pretty much summarized our Summer Fellows’ presentationsJ However; the thing that kept me reading this book was that before it discussed each strategy it provided me with a little background about how writing instruction used to take place in classrooms and then was followed by what these wonderful strategies look like in classrooms today. So I pose the question that I have been thinking about, what new writing strategies do you plan to incorporate into your classroom this year? How will it look?