During my practicum, I came to realize that many of my students abhorred the writing process and writing in general, particularly formal types of writing. They found it labour-intensive, especially when they were made to write on paper as opposed to their phone or laptop, which they took up any time the option was made available. In fact, there seemed to be a sort of “fear” in regards to it—it was always a daunting concept, even more so when marks were involved. The students who found it difficult, who were afraid of sharing “bad” writing, who said that they weren’t skilled at it, were the ones who always groaned whenever a writing task was introduced.
I had the opportunity to teach Creative Writing 11/12 alongside my ELA classes, an elective course filled with wonderful writers, including students who had won prizes and had been published in a few local zines. The difference between a self-selected course and a mandated course in terms of the enthusiasm towards writing was astounding. The students in my class were self-motivated, reflective, and extremely strong writers. They loved working with all forms of written work, and they enjoyed the process of critiquing and analyzing pieces to improve upon their own writing styles. I wondered what the difference was. Perhaps the idea of creative writing itself is less-imposing than the regular essay-structured pieces we teach our students in ELA classes. Or perhaps these students have been enriched in environments where their writing has flourished, and where they sincerely wanted to write and improve their writing. This is not to say that there aren’t students who absolutely love writing in our mainstream English classes, but my goal is to facilitate a space where students can develop an appreciation for writing in a variety of contexts (not just formal, but informal types, writing for media, advertisement, film, poetry, conversation, dialogue, etc.). In an ELA course, I hope to incorporate low-risk activities where students can ease into the writing process and speak to things that interest them to make it less of a daunting experience.
Below is one of the writing exercises resources I used in my lesson on writing memoirs created by Taylor Mali. Students loved the Slam Poem Mad Lib and really enjoyed thinking and sharing about it with each other: