If we want our students to have this kind of impact, we have to teach them to express themselves with both precision and passion. Human beings yearn to share, reflect, and understand one another, and they use these reflections to improve the state of things, both personal and public. It's the same reason there are 56 million WordPress blogs and 76 million Tumblrs. There's a reason fiction and narrative nonfiction outsell all other genres in the U.S. Where will we be if we graduate a generation of young people who can write an academic paper on the Civil War but have no power to convey the human experience? It is not because those forms of writing in themselves are of no use. If young people are not learning to write while exploring personal narratives and short fiction, it is because we as educators need more training - or the specifics of the curriculum need development. It is impossible to teach any form of writing without applying and celebrating analytic concepts and mechanical precision. And many teachers are doing it, and doing it well, across the country.ĭavid Coleman, the cynical architect of the new curriculum that will be imposed on public schools in 46 states over the next two years, is trying to reverse an education trend "that favors self-expression and emotion over lucid communication." But skilled teachers of creative genres have always known that all good writing requires lucid communication. It is not easy to tackle the issues that arise, and it's not easy to learn how to teach fiction and memoir writing well. It is not easy to teach creative writing within the confinement of school.
But what are we supposed to think when our youngest members do it? When should our admiration turn to worry, and when does it become a school's responsibility? We had discussed a no-censorship approach for this workshop and the children had immediately come to life when they were told they could write a fictional story about anything they wanted.īut by week two, some of the teachers were concerned to see the heavy material that emerged, here and there, throughout the grade, from the special ed class to the "gifted and talented." Human beings young and old love exploring dark, fantastical themes.
We had just started a residency in her school. Three hours later, I am still moved and humbled by the principal's thoughtful consideration of a topic so new and strange to her.
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