The Voice of Choice

When I first started teaching high school, I taught 2 sections of ninth grade interdisciplinary English and 3 sections of SUPA English, which was a twelfth grade college level course through Syracuse University.  Over the summer before my first year teaching, I went to Syracuse for two weeks to get trained to teach their program.  If any of you ever get the opportunity to teach these courses, I highly recommend doing so.  The first semester was a writing course, and the second semester was an English literature course that included critical perspectives.  These courses changed my life as a writer and as a teacher.

One of the highlights of the course for me was the opportunity for student choice in all of the writing assignments.  This, I felt, was the real deal.  This is what writing should be for students—innovative, original, and self-directed.  It is really what writing should be for all of us.  While each unit was centered around teaching different styles of writing—analysis, argument, discourse analysis, and research writing—the paper topics were completely up to the students.  I was excited.  However, when the school year began, my students were not.

            I learned quickly that my students needed guidance when picking their topics.  Prior to my course, they had never (or rarely) been given the opportunity to decide their own paper topics.  Furthermore, they had often been given formulas or templates to work from during the writing process.  The first three weeks of class were challenging for my students and for me.  It took me some time to realize that I needed to take the training wheels off of the bike and hold on to the back of the bike for a time while my students learned how to ride on their own.  To help students adjust, I provided numerous models of what students had done in the past.  I brainstormed with students and provided them with research and writing strategies that might help them find their topics and their own formulas for writing.  The entire time, I continued to stress that my rubrics were designed to be open to student originality.  By the third paper, my students became very self-sufficient in the new style of writing and grew to appreciate the choices given to them.  Just like Barry Gilmore states in “Is It Done Yet?”  my students did “come to take more pride in and ownership of the entire essay-writing experience” (13).  As a result, the essays and papers written by my students were inspirational, creative, and relevant.  It is with this SUPA method in mind that I now design most of my writing assignments for 7-12 and college students.  Choice allows for ownership and power to reign supreme.  It allows my students’ voices to be heard over the voices of the texts that they analyze and use in their research.  

Words Power My Fight Against Injustice

As I sat by my grandmother’s hospital bedside this weekend, I found myself wishing that I had become a lawyer or a doctor or another profession that would seem the slightest bit intimidating to the people at the hospital giving me short answers about why my grandmother’s surgery needed to be done again.  The simple answer was they had done something incorrect during surgery that caused a severe infection; this needed to be rectified.  The complicated answer included how it had happened, which medicines could help to heal the infection, and how much longer she would need to be in the hospital she had been admitted to in August.  On many of these issues, multiple doctors could not agree.  This was supposed to be a fairly routine procedure.  If done correctly, she could have been out of the hospital in a week and then onto rehab.  However, this was clearly not the case.  So, at 5am on Friday, I found myself catching a train into Philadelphia to be there with my grandmother before her surgery. 

            As the doctors explained the results of the surgery to me, I listened carefully, trying to remember every detail and medical term to report back to my family. My mother was on her way to the hospital, but since the nursing staff had told my family that the surgery was not going to be until 9pm, everyone thought they had plenty of time to get there. As luck—or scheduling mistakes made by the hospital staff—would have it, the surgery was actually 9am. Thus, I was the family representation since I had taken an early train to avoid rush hour in New York City.  I listened; I asked questions and then listened some more.  Everything reportedly went well.  I felt a sense of relief come over me. 

Then, a few hours later, that relief was taken away.  My uncle who is a doctor/ surgeon in the Philadelphia area arrived at the hospital a few hours after the surgery to check on my grandmother.  She was in a lot of pain, but that was to be expected.  What we did not expect was a report from my uncle that the doctors at the hospital where she had the surgery had lied… about a few things.  I will not get into details about these lies right now, but I will say that these lies made me wish for power to expose the untruths being told.  I instantly wished that I had stuck with my plan in undergraduate school to become a lawyer; a lawyer would be intimidating to surgeons and to one of the top ten hospitals in the country. Medical malpractice suits could certainly ruin their rankings.  Then I thought more; if I was a doctor or a nurse, I could fix the problem myself.  I have often felt that if I want something done right, I have to do it myself.  This is not to say that delegation of responsibilities should be avoided, but many times taking on a responsibility and carrying it through alone is necessary. 

After wishing for a new degree, or additional degrees, I realized that in light of all of this injustice at the hospital, I became a teacher and a writer for a reason.  I love being a teacher.  I love working with people who have committed their lives to helping others through education.  I love working with children who are eager to learn, and even those that are not.  It is rewarding to see a student succeed in my class and then again to see them succeed years after they have graduated.  Education is the grassroots of all change efforts, I believe.  If we can educate students both morally and academically, then our reach is far greater than many others’ in other professions. 

As an English teacher, I am also a writer, and I realize that my words have power.  Sitting there in the hospital, I realized this weekend that I don’t have to be a lawyer or a doctor to have people hear me. I am a writer.  I have my words to fight injustice, and I certainly plan to use them.  Determined to take on the role of a muckraking journalist, I jotted down some notes in my notebook about all that I had seen and heard, and I got to work drafting a letter to the editor of the Philadelphia Inquirer.  I may not have a medical degree or a law degree—not yet anyway—but I do have a teaching/research (half doctorate) degree and a writing degree.  I will use my chosen profession to power my fight against injustice, and I will make an impact.  Of that I am certain, and I give my word.  This is just one of the many examples of how I choose to mind my voice and speak my mind.  

Written Words

Words have the ability to empower us.  They breathe life into our values and give legs to our beliefs.  Without words, we are left with minimal ways to express ourselves universally.  Yes, there are physical and visual perceptions of how we feel and what we believe, but words give us the ability to articulate the specific ways that we feel without being misunderstood.

Context in writing allows for a reduction of misunderstandings; however, misunderstanding still does occur from the written word.  How can we help our students to be empowered by words—words that we write, words that they write, and words that their peers write?  How can we get students to see that their words have lasting impacts, especially when written? 

I believe one venue through which students can see the impact of written words is on Facebook.  Status messages and wall posts give students open forums to post thoughts and messages for others to read.  Whether the messages are intended for an audience of one or an audience of 500, people read what is written.  Whether it is out of curiosity, care or malice, Facebook has caused a culture of public sharing and publication.  Facebook has been a medium for praising, collective praying, and bullying.  It is a written, public venue that can empower, or disempower, depending on its use.  While Facebook can be a very dangerous tool for our students to use, it can also be a place where students can practice and apply their writing skills.  As teachers, I believe it is our responsibility to educate our students about the proper use of social networking sites like Facebook and Twitter.  We need to show them how these public words can be used to hurt or help others.  Hopefully, we can encourage a culture of students that seeks to help and improve the status quo.

As a teacher, I always begin each school year with the same goal for each of my students: that s/he may develop her/his own distinct voice as a writer.  I believe that individual voice is more important than any other byproduct of writing education.  I want my students to be confident in their own voices and convictions.  I want them to feel comfortable with themselves and in my class.  It is for this reason that I always require students to keep journals, no matter what their grade or level of education is.  Journals allow us to be reflective learners not just about what we are learning academically, but also about ourselves.  Here’s hoping this electronic journal will be another reflective tool in my own personal and academic journey.