Raising Readers and Writers

Today, J. Patrick Lewis visited our writing camp to share his experiences. I couldn’t help but think about how lucky our young writers were to get to listen to him in such an intimate setting.  Most impressive is that he treated our campers with the respect given to real writers. It was as if he was speaking to them as writer to writer.  He sure got me thinking about myself both as a writer and a writing teacher.  I ended up taking 4 pages of notes.  Here are just a few of my thoughts on what he said:
In order to be a writer, you need to be a reader.   Check.  I wholeheartedly believe that to be true.   

You have to love words.  The library is the hospital to the mind.  I love this analogy…the library being the hospital to the mind.  I believe that it is my job to immerse my students in words; to help them become curious about, oberservers of, and playful with language.  My goal is to take time to gather these gems in my own notebook. I don’t know how many times I tell myself that I need to remember the certain way an author says something and it’s gone the next day.  Or the times when I’m at a loss for words  and I wish my vocabulary was a little broader.

Make the dictionary and thesaurus your best friend.  What better way to learn more words?  And no, I don’t mean copying definitions out of the dictionary.  When was the last time you did that in your real life?  We need to teach our students in an authentic manner how to use, when to use, and why to use these references.  There are also  many options available on the web that give the same information as the dictionary and a thesaurus.  I think it’s important that we introduce our students to the myriad of possibilities.

Show, don’t tell.  Capture the moment in words, not pictures.  I have a filing cabinet of ideas on ways to teach this to my students.   I have example after example of “showing, not telling” in  other authors’  published work; however, I’m not very good at it in my own writing.  So, one of my goals this summer will be to work on painting a picture with my words when I am writing for myself.

Write every day.  Just like those in sports practice every day, so should writers.  Jane Yolen calls it the BIC method (Butt in Chair).  Pat writes from 6:00 a.m. until 4 or 5:00 in the afternoon every day.  There is a dichotomy between what I teach and what I practice (and yes, I  just used dictionary.com to make sure I used the word dichotomy correctly).  My students write every day because Writing  Workshop time is sacred in my room.  I know that in order for them to become better writers, they need time to experiment, make mistakes, and learn from other writers.  I do not afford myself the same opportunities.  Life starts speeding by and before I know it, a chunk of time has gone by and I have not put pen to paper.  This summer gives me the chance to slow down a bit and focus on my writing.  I am going to make it a priority to have some BIC time each and every day.

These are just a sampling of my notes…I will continue with more of Pat’s thinking tomorrow.  You can learn more about Pat here.