Writing freely

One day down. I took it easy on my Tuesday/Thursday group today because they get two meetings this week, and my Mon/Wed just gets one. I want to keep them as parallel as I can. The benefit of teaching four sections of the same course should be that I only have to prep once a week (in addition to prepping the online class, but thankfully that should roll smoothly now on its third go-around).

I'm reading their writing samples and singing praises to Ken Macrorie and the Writing Project for hammering into my head the importance of teaching writers, not writing. One reason I love teaching basic writing is that my objective is to help my students become writers, readers, and thinkers. I don't have to teach citation, MLA (beyond font and margins), research, etc. I can focus on helping them see themselves as people who have worthwhile thoughts. Most of my students see themselves as dumb, at least in the realm of English, but they aren't. They just need practice, like me. I just have a little more practice than they do. In exchange, I get the gift of their stories.

Today, instead of asking them to write on a given topic, we read through a chapter of Telling Writing and finished by asking them to write freely for ten minutes on any topic they like. Because my students tend to freeze, I usually give an option or two, but most of them are grateful for the free choice to write on whatever comes to mind. Maybe I should be assessing how well they can form a nice schoolish paragraph, but what I really want to see is whether they can shut off their preconceptions about what is good writing and just tell the truth. Some of them still throw in the Engfish, but most of them are so relieved to hear they can just write without worrying about impressing someone that I get stories about fears of seizures, football injuries that disappointed dads, dreams of travel nursing, and desires to keep their kids out of prison.

I feel tired thinking about teaching this class three times in a row tomorrow, and since my kid was asleep by 7 tonight, I'd best get to sleep myself.