I love to write-- but I need to scribble. And when I write, I don’t stop at words. My pen picks up my letters and bubbles them, bolds them, italicizes, digs into the idea I’m trying to get out of my head and drops doodles all over the margins of my paper. I’ve always struggled with guiding my attention, and when I tried to shove myself into a perfect box, that's where my writing struggled, too. I became a writer when I realized that in order to make good writing, or poetry, or notes, I had to put myself (loud voice, scribbles, and all,) into what I created. If I didn’t care, it wouldn’t matter.
So, I started caring a lot more and got a lot better. I published a few poems, filled sketchbooks with my notes, and collaborated with a sea of young artists. By coming back to UW-Milwaukee to earn a master's degree with a focus on teaching creative writing, I hope to explore the ways that we all have a unique creativity to our writing, from content (genre, craft, & function) to composition (form, design, & aesthetic). I’m curious about how your thinking works differently to mine, how you organize and learn idiosyncratically -- maybe because of your background, or your brain, or identity, and how we can find ways to embrace that variance. There is no wrong way to express your voice, except to ignore it.
Working with students as a High School English Teacher has taught me so much about the skill of giving feedback and the integral relationships that it rests upon. As Rebecca Segal discusses in our readings this week, effective feedback requires empathy, "trust, and humility from both parties” (Segal 2024). Whether it is during a workshop, 1-on-1 conference, or informally during the writing process, honoring the learner and their writing intention is always my priority because I know, like Segal, that a disillusioned author means the editor has failed. When students (or anyone) share their writing, it is always vulnerable and often intimidating, but even moreso for certain students. Cptn. Segal points out that in the Army, hierarchies impact the effectiveness of the feedback process, and the same is true in the classroom. It is essential to consider the impact that facets of identity like age, race, cultural background, language acquisition, etc., have on the student-teacher, or mentor-mentee relationship, especially as a white teacher in an urban schooling environment (about 70% in 2024). We can work to honor student voice by engaging empathetically and by catering to students' individualized needs over our own need to reemphasize our power and prove ourselves, as Ward (1999) put it. It is so rewarding to see what writing can become with a bit of responsive advice, or even just a good soundboard to bounce ideas off of!
Hi Greta! I really loved this post. First off, your literacy collage is absolutely gorgeous. I know we talked about it a bit in class, but I'm a huge The Last of Us Fan too. I think it's so cool to experience a story directly in the shoes of the main character, making decisions alongside them and sometimes for them. I've read a few of Tillie Walden's graphic novels in the past and I really enjoyed them! I really appreciate her art style and her focus on queer, adolescent experiences. I think it's so great that you were able to find your love for writing in combination with drawing and other forms of expression. I so agree that idiosyncratically is important in a creative setting and in a classroom setting. I think getting to know students through their unique writing styles and voices is going to be one of my greatest joys of teaching when I have my own classroom, and clearly this is something you're very passionate about as well. I also really appreciated how you touched on how our identities affect our relationships and hierarchies within the classroom. That's a really important thing to remember, especially since historically and currently there has been a disproportionate ratio of white teachers to POC students. Great post!
ReplyDeleteI love that this revised literacy collage is full of visually rich texts and at the same time has you visually represented as immersed in a book.
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