Dear Classmates,
My relationship with writing has always been complicated. I love to write probably as much as I hate to write. Writing is something that can feel like a chore at times. It is similar to go going to Church, the gym or running errands. You may not always want to do it, but you always feel better when you’re done. (For the record I have not been to the gym or Church in several years.) I freely admit that I don’t write anymore unless it is for school or correspondence through e-mail. I often think of something great to write down and then it disappears as quickly as it came into thought. That is one of the reasons I am excited for this class, especially after reading Fletcher’s “A Writer’s Notebook”.
Some of my earliest memories of writing come from grades 6-8. I had a teacher named Mrs. Sullivan for all three years who challenged us to read and write things that, on occasion, seemed to be more appropriate at the high school level. Her assignments were the most challenging I had up to that point as a student. We read Shakespeare, wrote research papers and did other things that many students struggled with. As you can probably guess, Mrs. Sullivan was not the most popular teacher for many students. She was tough, but never without good reason. The work I did in 8th grade for Mrs. Sullivan prepared me for the rigorous amount of writing I would have to do at Fairfield Prep.
In high school, I had several teachers that made me love writing and eventually want to teach. Some of these included: Mr. Sather, Mr. Wallace and Mr. Bramble. They all had similar but different styles. Mr. Sather had a dry sense of humor and made you think critically about difficult questions. Mr. Bramble had an Ernest Hemingway beard and a flair for acting out scenes from different texts. (For some reason I can still remember him fighting Grendel when we were reading Beowulf.) Mr. Wallace always allowed free time in class to write about whatever was on your mind that day. He would play classical music and dim the lights to create a relaxed atmosphere. (There were a couple of times were it was so relaxed that I fell asleep.) This activity, more than any other, has stuck with me over the years. It was teachers and classes like Mr. Wallace’s that made writing fun.
Unfortunately, for as many positive experiences I had with writing, I probably had more negative ones. I can remember having to write five paragraph essays over and over again. It got to the point where it seemed too scientific and limiting as a format. The one type of writing I have hated more than any is the research paper. You cannot simply sit down and write a research paper off the top of your head. It takes preparation and constant revising to write a really good research paper. As a student who used to procrastinate, this made my life difficult. I was happy to read about the I-Search paper in Jim Burke’s “What’s the Big Idea?” a couple of semesters ago. It allows the student to concentrate their research on what they are interested in rather than what the teacher assigns as a topic. I would recommend this book to any English teacher as it has great examples of teaching through student inquiry and really giving students choice and ownership in the classroom.
I like to read many different styles of writing and read every day. Sometimes it may just be a newspaper or articles on the internet, but there is always some form of reading. I generally enjoy novels and short stories, although I often find myself drawn to sports biographies and articles. One of my favorite sports biographies is called “When Pride Still Mattered” by David Maraniss. It is an in depth profile of Vince Lombardi that delves into his development as a coach and his relationship with his family outside of football. It is both inspirational and tragic in many ways.
To put it quite simply, I want to teach writing as both a practical tool and an outlet for expression or communication of ideas. It is important to me that students develop a love for reading and writing that stays with them for the rest of their lives. I feel like if I can do that alone, I will have accomplished a great deal.
The only question that comes to mind is in regard to students and their inclusion of very personal content. Obviously, this is something that needs to be handled delicately. I want to be someone students can trust, but I don’t know whether it is always a positive thing for me to be reading about very personal secrets and traumatic experiences. In other words, is there ever a case where things can get too personal? I want to get to know my students as well as I can, I am just curious if anyone has any input on how to handle these situations. Thanks for reading!
Sincerely,
Keith Manning
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