How To Choose Topics for Writing in Literacy

I did not like writing when I was growing up. Diagramming sentences was a foreign language to me, and I had to do a lot of it. If you know me and you read this blog, you know editing is not my strength. But hey, with the typos at least you know it isn’t AI derived! With a few notable exceptions, my experiences as a writer in K-12 had one overarching theme. I had little connection to what I was asked to write about. To be a great writer, you have to be connected to the topic. Otherwise, what you write is going to be boring and/or uninspiring. If it is boring and uninspiring to the writer, then there is virtually zero chance the reader is going to somehow see it otherwise. Our students need to be provided opportunities to write about what interests them. That might involve a choice of prompts. It might mean students get to choose their topics, an open ended approach if you will. It might mean that the teacher chooses interesting topics/texts from which to write. But connected to the topic, they must be – yeah, that sounds like Yoda. I couldn’t resist.

I think the data driven approach is dumbing down our students. It is 100% dumbing down writing instruction. Writing prompts for standardized state writing assessments are bland. Students are given arbitrarily set times to write. They often are not connected to the topic at all. Those prompts lack authenticity. When we think about writing in our own lives as adults, the writing process is rarely confined to a set time. There are stops and starts and pauses. There has to be time to gather random thoughts into a properly sequenced set of sentences which make sense. Sometimes that process can days or weeks in a classroom.

The real magic of writing is when student realize that what they write is important, that the process of becoming a good writer is attainable. I honestly believe that many students don’t believe they will ever become good writers. Worse? I think many students don’t see the value in good writing. Even worse than that? The professional conversations about good writing are only seen through the lens of getting better scores on assessments.

I share this often from Langston Hughes’ Mother to Son. We used to do an entire unit on African American poetry. If you took 180 days of instruction, the week we worked through this poem was always one of my favorite weeks.

Well, son, I’ll tell you: 
Life for me ain’t been no crystal stair.
It’s had tacks in it,
And splinters,
And boards torn up,
And places with no carpet on the floor—
Bare;

I wanted my students to be inspired to write like that. Those words are transcendent. They reach across generations and circumstances. Langston Hughes was writing about a topic which he knew well – discrimination based on race. However, I think all of us can relate in some way to those words. Life can be hard. Tacks. Splinters. Boards torn up. Laid bare.

The writing process should provide opportunities for students to make connections. It should allow students the opportunity to learn the joy of putting words on a page and having those words read by an audience. Long ago, we used to have conversations about how to develop great writers.

I love going to student art shows. Why? It is creativity for creativity’s sake. I am free to admire self-portraits, cubism, ceramics, fabric, oils and pastels, and graphite works for what they are – unique creations by students which express something about themselves which they want the world to see. Writing should often be like that. There is an aspect of writing which should tap into creativity.

I enjoyed reading my students’ work in their draft books. I read almost all of it. I critiqued a lot of it w/ rubrics, post its, and side notes. But if I could go back and do one things it would be this…..just reading their work for enjoyment and admiring it like an art show – flaws and all.

I encourage educators to get out of the fish bowl of teaching to the test and to look at the bigger picture. We want our students to be proficient writers, because it is meaningful, purposeful, and fun. Writing standardized prompts is often an exercise in futility. The process of writing for a standardized assessment if often abbreviated, truncated, and force fed. It doesn’t represent the real life process of writing. Real life writing involves stopping, starting, and getting stumped. It involves coming back to the work over and over again in order to get it right.

I now completely reject the process of standardized assessments, data conferences, and spreadsheets. That particular learning cycle makes my skin crawl. I want critical thinking taught, not robotic thought.

Imagine the depth of writing which even young students can bring to the table. Imagine if they could take extreme poverty, and put that experience into words. Imagine if they could take bullying, and put that into words. Imagine if they could learn to write masterpieces that would look like the ceiling of the Sisten Chapel. Imagine the reaction of students if we simply came through with the intent to admire their work.

We must create learning environments where the learning process allows students to write about topics which they connect to. We must build learning environments which incorporate rich literature experiences which reach past the next standardized assessment. We must remind students that great literature was written with nary a writing prompt.

I sat in alpine meadow a few weeks ago. It was 10,000 feet above sea level. We had just finished fishing. As the sun hit the ridges above us, we were left with light which is unique to such places during the quiet of evening. It was like heaven – and man, I hope heaven is really that good. I want to write about that experience, not some contrived, formulaic prompt just to please a test scorer who appreciates my work for no longer than it takes me to read and pass a sign along the interstate. Let me right about that meadow, and I will knock your socks off.

Our students need that same opportunity. I can promise you that if you give them those opportunities, you are really gonna like that finished product. And just maybe, we will have more students leaving our classrooms who enjoy writing, are competent in its process, and esteem to become better at that craft.

ProTip: If you think your system of teaching writing is exceptional, I offer this quote from Norman Maclean for your consideration. Beware of folks who think they have it all figured out. Getting better at teaching requires refinement, an admittance that sometimes we have taken a wrong turn, and the instinctual recognition that sometimes an open ended assignment produces far more than the initial learning objective requests.

When I was young, a teacher had forbidden me to say “more perfect” because she said if a thing is perfect it can’t be more so. But by now I had seen enough of life to have regained my confidence in it.