Becoming a Community of Learners and Writers

First days are nerve-wracking. Students sun-kissed, with a hint of green in their pool-doused hair, cling to their parents, seemingly shy. I feel that shyness too, yet know that I must make the first moves to begin the year-long process of becoming a community: one of learners and one of writers. I have no illusions that my students will grow up to be published authors–that isn’t the point of becoming writers. But I do want them to embrace the identity and the confidence that they are all writers with stories to tell. My students are an intricate tapestry of abilities, temperaments, and experiences. Even as first graders, they know how to read the world of school. They know already if they are seen as smart and capable and they know whether school feels like a comfortable place for them. And it’s up to me to learn to read them, to find out where a boost of confidence is needed, where some academic support would help, who needs an opportunity to stretch to reach new heights, who needs space to move, and who needs to find a place to shine. I need to carefully weave in new ways of thinking about themselves, new ways for them to think about me, and pay attention to places where threads are escaping and threatening to unravel. And to build our identity as writers, we start with stories. We braid a thick rope of words: words spoken, words read, and words written that also becomes a part of the tapestry that is our community. James Britton, a foundational language scholar, is known for saying, “Reading and writing float on a sea of talk.” Students, especially the young students I get to teach, need to use language, often chatting in informal ways, to inform their thinking, to play with all the subtleties of the ways that language works, to build their vocabularies, to figure out a variety of different ways to express their ideas, emotions, and passions. We begin our days with a morning meeting, a time to set our intentions for the day, a time to be heard, a time to use words together. This is a space when many days we practice expressing the thinking that we will be putting into our writing later in the day. Oral language is essential for my young students. Saying words out loud helps them form their thoughts, refine their ideas, add details through conversation. Even if nothing from this rehearsal makes its way into students’ writing, its value remains. Students have engaged in the thinking process, tried out some ideas, heard ideas from classmates, and then there is space and time for processing, even if not conscious, before the actual writing begins. This is also a time where they hear from me, as I, too, am a part of this community. This sea of talk launches other explorations, into how we see ourselves as writers and learners, what we love and know about, and how we like to be treated by the others in this space. Picture books and published authors are another thread of that rope of words. Stories that echo my students’ experiences, stories that push the boundaries and expectations of their lives, stories rich with language, where words are paint showing us new ways to combine them, ways to strip words down, ways to lean on images, all opening up possibilities for thinking and writing. And we talk stories too. We might make connections and comments to stories we hear, expanding understandings about ourselves and the world. We read and respond as readers, building comprehension and a love of the written word. Students point out the ways they understand the stories we read, noticing how they are alike and different from their own experiences. We read and respond as writers, exploring structures, conventions, and the craft that allow words to sing. We note what we might try in our own writing and encourage playful experimentation under the influence of our favorite authors. Making time for writing, for students to put words on the page, is also essential. Not filling in blanks or answering questions about what they have read, but authentic opportunities to write about ideas and things that they care about. That isn’t the same as having all students freewriting in their journals: choosing genre, topic, and everything else. Too many decisions can be paralyzing for writers. Early in the school year I like to keep writing times and production expectations on the short side. My students need to build stamina and need to feel like they are successful writers. A favorite early-in-the-school-year project is having my students write an “A Dot Can Be…” zine. We read about dots (starting with Peter Reynold’s classic, The Dot), we talk about dots, and imagine all the things a dot can be. We throw ideas out in conversation, refining first thoughts with additional details. “A dot can be a sun” might be a reasonable sentence for one of my emergent literacy learners while another more confident and fluent writer might go on to write, “A dot can be the hot yellow sun shining in the bright blue sky.” Both are perfectly acceptable. And of course, before writing the zine, we need to make the zine. Folding paper, helping each other out, and making a “real” book all make those zines even more motivating and special! (And there is room for a drawing on each page too!) As part of this writing community, I write with my students. As the most experienced writer in the room, I am careful to use my writing to help my students know me, to know that writing is hard for everyone, to let them know that writers help other writers, and that writers keep getting better as they practice their craft. As the school year progresses our writing gets longer and more complex. We write about science concepts, we write outdoors, we write in response to the art we make. We write and write and write, also using the stories we read and the words we speak to inform and support that writing. All the while students are building fluency and confidence as writers. They are learning that spelling isn’t the most essential part of writing and that mistakes don’t diminish writers. We get used to sharing our writing and our thinking with one another and recognize that each of us has moments of brilliance that others can learn from. We appreciate C’s quirky metaphors and P’s poetic flow. Students know who is fast and prolific and who takes more time to craft their stories. By year’s end, students may not love writing, but they are comfortable with pencil and paper in hand. They expect to generate ideas, make plans, and write whole stories. During the last week of school these first graders sustained writing self-generated stories for an hour and begged for more time to finish. What was motivating them? Their stories were inspired by our reading of Pocket Bear by Katherine Applegate. A story about a tiny stuffed bear who, when humans were not around, could talk and move and had a very interesting story to tell. When I handed my students each their own stuffed pocket bear, they were excited to play with these adorable tiny bears and eager to take them home. And I wanted them to own them, once they developed their own story with the bear as their main character. Together we came up with ideas. Could their bear be a famous baseball player? An imaginary being from another universe? An activist cleaning up the earth? Everything was possible if they could invent it. Throughout the school year we continued to add threads to our classroom tapestry. Our braided rope of words was woven throughout, touching us all, supporting us all, inspiring us all. Reading, writing, speaking, listening, and creating all floated on a sea of talk, interactions that enriched our literacy learning and built a community of learners and of writers.