A Recent Victory for Writing in the Schools

This happened in a fourth grade classroom a few weeks ago.

Monday I went into one of the classes and noticed right away a boy who seemed oppositional with his teacher. I filed that observation away and went on with my usual shtick—introduced myself, got the 5 senses out of them, drawing a cartoon character on the board as they gave me the info. This holds their attention, draws them in, and wows them all at once. Okay, then I told a funny story using the senses and simile, processed it with them in a high energy q and a. Now it’s time for them to write. I gave them a started, set down the rules, and launched them.

As I walked back by the teacher’s desk, she whispered to me that the kid I had noticed when I came in would not write anything. Well, excuse me, but the way I set things up it’s really hard to NOT write. The kid was writing. I looked over his shoulder and asked if it was okay to look at what he’d written. I think he didn’t know how to say no to me, so I looked at it and noticed the detail. He had a kid looking out a window to a new neighborhood. There were broken sidewalks and three burning garbage cans.

“Cool,” I told him. “Great detail.” Then I walked away.

I stopped by another time and encouraged him and let it go at that.

Tuesday, though, he got stuck, so I helped him get going again, then let him alone. That night I took the stories home, looked them over, put my comment/cartoon/speech bubble on each one, and gave them back to the kids on Wednesday. That’s always a big moment, so I give them a bit of time to walk around and show each other their cartoons.

The kids start a new story usually on Wednesday, but this little guy wanted to continue with the first story. I let him do that and I mentioned to him that I wanted him to be one of the readers at our reading in the library on Thursday. He got a tiny, tiny secret smile on his face and said, “Yeah, I guess so” like he didn’t REALLY want to do it.

His teacher told me he wouldn’t do it. Not a chance. The next day, when it looked like he might just do it, she told me his mother would have to sit right next to him and help him get through it. He couldn't, wouldn't read aloud. I said I’d do that instead if need be. His mother could watch.

Well, the time came, he read, I sat next to him as he read, his voice--I'm not kidding!--getting stronger as he went along. Then I watched the astonishment on his face when the audience applauded. The next day in class he could barely contain his smile.

Hey, folks! Storywriting touched another life!