Last night, I plowed through twenty-four personal narratives from my Advanced Language Arts classes. At the end of the two-month project, I must admit to being a little bit of a harpy. I don’t think I shook my fist, but I did my fair share of haranguing and hectoring. It sounded something like this. “ALL of you need to add at least ten descriptive adjectives somewhere. ALL of you need to reflect more deeply on your experience. And while you’re at it, CHANGE YOUR TITLES!” This is a chatty class, but yesterday, their brains burned. Keys clicked and clacked on old black Dell computers. If they talked, it was a quick whispered question, and then, onward.
My students spent the first quarter writing four different personal narratives. Then, they practiced revising one narrative in small-group writing circles with each other. We spent one day totally frustrated when we couldn’t log into our Chromebooks on the district Wi-Fi, but other than that, I got a kick out of walking around the room and hearing kids (loudly) discussing their leads and similes with their writing circles, pens in hand.
Once they’d practiced revising, it was on to the real deal-otherwise known as the Embedded Assessment, which is quite a mouthful. I get hung up and tongue-twisted on that unwieldy term every year. Back to the lab, back to their writing circles for feedback, and then they shared their final drafts with me in Google Docs, where I made at least ten comments per paper. More constructive hectoring.
When I read their papers last night, I couldn’t help but smile. They revised! Some of them transformed their papers into something new, something muscular, something wiser than when we began. The editing was a bit horrific, but we will go back and edit, because so many of them wrote words that shine. And then they reflected on their very first draft and analyzed the differences between that draft and the final draft. Powerful. Time to mull, think, talk with peers and teachers, and change, is powerful. It was even better for them to see that their thought, their effort, their pursuit of precise words, their attention to detail, to their reactions and their characters’ reactions, improved their stories dramatically. They saw, without me telling them, that we want to read, savor, and understand their stories. And, their hard work mattered.
I tried to get all deep with them about the nature of revision. “So now do you see the power of revision?” I asked them in the computer lab. Lots of nodding. “So now do you see how it’s like life? How have you revised your life based on what you learned from your personal narratives?” Okay, that question received a lot of blank stares, and I think I even heard one kid mutter, “Huh?” I will revisit the question, because it’s the deeper reason for spending two months on a story about you.
It’s not just about the story. It’s what you learned, what you gathered, what you will do again or never do again. It’s the power of a good story and its reflection, where you grasp another piece about yourself and add to the ever-shifting puzzle.
middleschoolwritingmt 