Joe and the Notebook
Last week I had the honor of visiting Washington DC with four amazing colleagues from the Western PA Writing Project – teachers with nearly 50 years of cumulative experience with the National Writing Project model. Like many other writing project sites around the country, who came to lobby against the elimination of federal funding for one of the most successful professional development programs in American education, we met with Congress and made our arguments. We stressed the cost-effectiveness of the NWP, and we emphasized the power and benefits of an infrastructure built over decades. And, as customary for such visits, we placed convincing materials – research briefs, site profile data and brochures with pictures of smiling teachers working outside with relaxed and happy students – into the hands of those who would vote for or against our continued support. But there is something we didn’t leave behind with Congress because it is too precious to the fourth grader and her teacher, Joe. It is a slightly battered, brown writer’s notebook, optimistically adorned with dozens of A+’s. At quick glance, the notebook’s cover looks like a constellation of blue and black stars in a cardboard sky. Inside the notebook, the work is even more dazzling. Pages of detailed lists and drawings give way to short paragraphs with lots of pencil smudges and line-outs. It’s a messy book full of fitful starts, where claims are made, abandoned and then rediscovered pages later with the conviction of one who finally believes in her ideas. To blatantly adapt a line from Joyce, the notebook is the smithy of a young writer forging her memoir, her poetry and her field guide. The notebook is also a testament to her teacher. Joe is a fourth grade teacher in Pittsburgh with a background in Science. He participated in our Summer Institute in July 2010, and, like many of us, he entered the Summer Institute with a guarded optimism that he might learn some useful strategies and benefit from hanging out with more advanced and proficient writers. He, we were told in his interview, was “not much of a writer.” Last July, Joe the non-writer wrote a poem about the birth of his daughter. It begins: “The moon invites you out
among the closed flowers and quiet birds
among the packed cars and sleeping neighbors” Joe the non-writer also wrote a “Memoir of Taunting (in Reverse Chronological Order).” An excerpt from “Age 11” reads: “Brody McDonald would never frazzle his ‘do with a hat. He was far too cool for that. Strangely, gloves were cool and he wore large, insulated ski mittens that I wouldn’t wear today if you paid me. His hands were toasty but he sacrificed his head and ears in the name of social status.” After a month of hard reading, Joe the non-writer wrote about his inquiry into what makes good science writing. He concludes: “When I started thinking about good science writing, observations, and the value of being outside, I hoped that I would find evidence supporting my beliefs that science writing is related to good observations and good observations are often made outside. Indeed, good science writing requires the kind of knowledge transformation skills that we want students to develop and build into their writing. Good scientists and good science writers are great observers and despite what people assume, good observation skills require careful practice. And it is most natural and very healthy for students to develop their observation skills as they explore and discover their local outside environment.” Clearly, Joe is a writer, and because he now thinks of himself as a writer his students are more apt to think of themselves as writers, too. The student’s notebook contains its own poetic images, its own memories, its own observant descriptions of the Sugar Maples and Shelf Fungi in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park. It is a book of original work. But like the force of warm air running through vents on a wet winter’s day, Joe’s classroom provides the welcoming environment that enables such work. He has not taught his students to write just like him, but he asks them to write with him and to share in a process that produces startling poetry, vivid memoir and good science writing. In our DC visits last week, the notebook made occasional appearances, serving as an artifact of genuine writing, of one hopeful student’s earnest and productively messy work over the course of the year. Rightly, the notebook has been returned to the student, whose writing is not finished, will never be finished. But the notebook also belongs to all of us – teachers, colleagues, members of Congress – who wish to understand the measurable and the hard to measure benefits of the National Writing Project’s mission. We strive to improve student writing by supporting the teachers who teach them. Congress needs to hear and read, again and again, the impressive statistics documenting the National Writing Project’s impact on student writing and professional development. But for me (and perhaps for others) that data only hums when understood in the context of a teacher’s specific story and the way it enables students to begin to write their own.
among the closed flowers and quiet birds
among the packed cars and sleeping neighbors” Joe the non-writer also wrote a “Memoir of Taunting (in Reverse Chronological Order).” An excerpt from “Age 11” reads: “Brody McDonald would never frazzle his ‘do with a hat. He was far too cool for that. Strangely, gloves were cool and he wore large, insulated ski mittens that I wouldn’t wear today if you paid me. His hands were toasty but he sacrificed his head and ears in the name of social status.” After a month of hard reading, Joe the non-writer wrote about his inquiry into what makes good science writing. He concludes: “When I started thinking about good science writing, observations, and the value of being outside, I hoped that I would find evidence supporting my beliefs that science writing is related to good observations and good observations are often made outside. Indeed, good science writing requires the kind of knowledge transformation skills that we want students to develop and build into their writing. Good scientists and good science writers are great observers and despite what people assume, good observation skills require careful practice. And it is most natural and very healthy for students to develop their observation skills as they explore and discover their local outside environment.” Clearly, Joe is a writer, and because he now thinks of himself as a writer his students are more apt to think of themselves as writers, too. The student’s notebook contains its own poetic images, its own memories, its own observant descriptions of the Sugar Maples and Shelf Fungi in Pittsburgh’s Frick Park. It is a book of original work. But like the force of warm air running through vents on a wet winter’s day, Joe’s classroom provides the welcoming environment that enables such work. He has not taught his students to write just like him, but he asks them to write with him and to share in a process that produces startling poetry, vivid memoir and good science writing. In our DC visits last week, the notebook made occasional appearances, serving as an artifact of genuine writing, of one hopeful student’s earnest and productively messy work over the course of the year. Rightly, the notebook has been returned to the student, whose writing is not finished, will never be finished. But the notebook also belongs to all of us – teachers, colleagues, members of Congress – who wish to understand the measurable and the hard to measure benefits of the National Writing Project’s mission. We strive to improve student writing by supporting the teachers who teach them. Congress needs to hear and read, again and again, the impressive statistics documenting the National Writing Project’s impact on student writing and professional development. But for me (and perhaps for others) that data only hums when understood in the context of a teacher’s specific story and the way it enables students to begin to write their own.
