For the first time, Global Graffiti Writing Camp was offered to middle and high school writers in Montgomery County. This past week I was joined by five talented writers who showed up on the first day ready to turn this week into a serious workshop.
I often tell people that this is my dream week of teaching. It restores my end-of-year-tired soul. Still slightly jolted by KPREP writing and end of course exams, I use writing camp as a fresh start to teach what I love without the debilitating anxiety attacks. I get to be a facilitator who models and guides. I get to sit down and write beside them. I get to step back and give students the space they need to write. I get to move throughout the day without being burdened by a schedule, posting attendance, or student-friendly learning targets. (It also helps that I get to work from 9 am- 2 pm, with more than 20 minutes to eat a half frozen Lean cuisine). It's teacher bliss.
It's student bliss, too. A student will inevitably say something along the lines of "I wish we could do this in school all the time." Usually the this they are referring to is the freedom to move from classroom to computer lab, or go to the bathroom as needed, or eat lunch before 1:30 pm. Logistics aside, they also pick up on the authenticity of our time together as learners. On day one they are entrusted with the daunting task to "improve the blank page" (Nicanor Parra,"Young Poets) and contribute to a global voice via their blogs. They respond by being truly engaged and committed to their writing tasks. Their blogs display the intensity of their craft work:
Writing camp is like a church revival. The night before camp begins I admit that my heart is rarely in the right place, as I grumble to my husband about all the precious poolside time I'm going to miss. However, by the end of the week, I am so moved by the presence of the holy-best-practices-teaching-spirit that I sprint down the aisle to beg forgiveness for my teaching sins and rededicate myself as a writing workshop follower. My camp time with young writers forces me to look good writing instruction in the face and reflect on how I can (and must) transfer the writing camp experience to a regular school year where there will always be inconvenient schedules, late lunches, learning targets, end of course exams, and kids whose parents didn't pay good money for them to hang out all day and write. Yet even after six years of my annual revival restart, I often stumble back into the rut of on demand writing lessons and five-paragraph essays drafted by the perfect four-square graphic organizer.
Now maybe it's because I hosted camp in my home school for the first time where reminders of my "day job" were everywhere, but the tug at my heart to transform my writing instruction was strong as I camp came to a close this year. On the last day, I asked the students to use Natasha Bedingfield's song, "Unwritten" as inspiration to reflect on what is still unwritten in their own notebooks. When I went to my notebook to reflect with them, I couldn't deny the fact that I need to "open up that dirty window" and "release" my students from a rigid and KPREP-cramped curriculum. And just like the sweaty, red-face, vein-pulsing preacher who implores his congregation to act immediately for the sake of their eternal salvation, my conscience knows the time to transform my writing curriculum is now.
I am currently pouring over Kelly Gallagher's, Write Like This and I just finished Jim Burke's, The English Teacher's Companion. These texts along with my writing camp revival have inspired me to sit down this summer and wrestle out a plan that honors the rigor of our Kentucky Core Academic Standards, while also stays true to the mission of making writing authentic, expressive and intentional. There will be learning targets, but there will also be student choice. There will be grades, but there will also be conferencing. There will be standards-based data, but there will be a writing workshop (Lord, help me. I may just be livin' at the foot of the cross with that last one). I've got a lot to figure out, and I expect some things to fail. Still yet, I am confident that whatever I implement has to be better than my previous efforts at writing instruction. As it states in the Nicanor Parra poem I presented to my student writers our first day together:
Too much blood has run under the bridge
To go on believing
That only one road is right.
...
You have to improve the blank page.
To go on believing
That only one road is right.
...
You have to improve the blank page.
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