Teacher as Writer | Professional Development

Teacher as Writer
Nature writer Shelley Washburn coaches students to be keen observers.

Like most of her colleagues, fourth-grade teacher Sue Wilcox is a busy person. "I work full time. I'm a mom with three kids. When am I ever going to sit down and write?"

The summer workshop gave Wilcox and her fellow teachers ample time to write. And revise. And read their stuff aloud. And then write some more, prompted and inspired by the parade of poets, novelists, and essayists who came to talk about their craft. "Not in 20 years have I had a chance to do this," says Wilcox, one of eight teachers from Laurelhurst Elementary School participating in COW under a special grant this year. "This program has reminded me of the value of being a writer myself. And it has reinforced for me that anybody can write. As a teacher, that's valuable to know."

Similarly, for fellow Laurelhurst teacher Ron Norman, the workshop provided an incentive to pick up his pen. "I don't write enough. I labor over my own writing. I get stuck on a choice of words. I tend to do all the things I tell my kids not to do," he admits. "This class forced me to write. And it reminded me how I throw stuff at my kids all the time. I'll tell them, I want five pieces finished by this date. Now I can see how hard that can be for them, because I've been tossed back in the classroom myself."

Community of Writers doesn't claim to have invented the "teacher as writer" model. It's an approach that's been used with success by the Bay Area Writing Project in Berkeley, California, since 1974, and by similar teacher training programs across the country, including several in the Northwest (see Writing Resources).

Why should teachers care about improving their own writing skills? "Many teachers have not been trained how to write," believes Colton, who was a high school teacher before launching his own nonfiction writing career. Even teachers who have studied grammar and composition, he suspects, "have probably never focused on the writing process." Like most professional writers, Colton knows from experience that "the real work of writing starts with rewriting." That's one of the lessons teachers take to heart when they struggle to improve their own writing in the workshops.

Debbie Bradway, Principal of Wilcox Elementary, says the experiential learning that goes on during the summer "gives teachers a hook" for understanding writing. "It's not like sitting in lectures. They learn the process by doing it."

Norman, for instance, recalls turning in a draft of a first-person story for Colton's review. "He just tore it apart. And it was bad," Norman admits, "but he edited it in such a way that I was laughing while he did it. It needed so much work, and I was just going to junk it. But he convinced me to start in a different place, keep a chunk of it, get rid of another big chunk, and move forward. That was a lesson for me: to see how valuable the editing process can be, and to remember that you don't want to defeat your students when you work with them on revising."

Turning teachers into enthusiastic writers is just one component of Community of Writers. Equally important is bringing writers into the classroom and turning them loose to teach.

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