When I started my first job out of college, I taught upper elementary classes at a small school. I learned a lot about being a teacher that I didn’t learn in my college classes. There’s only so much theory and student teaching can show you. When you’re in front of a class of your own, you have to learn how to teach and manage a classroom when it counts for more than the grade on your transcript.
As I went through those first few years, I also learned a lot from my students that went beyond the classroom. One benefit of a small school was smaller class sizes. Because I only had 15-20 kids in a class, I spent time with each student, really getting to know each one.
I did my best to help them navigate the strange pre-teen years where they didn’t want to be treated like a little kid, but they weren’t quite ready for the world of teenage things. As a result, I tried to adjust lesson plans to provide a variety of assignments to fit their variety of learning styles. This included letting them design some of their own projects (within the confines of the curriculum).
Part of that lesson variety included writing challenges, sometimes as extra credit, sometimes instead of a regular test. In particular, I found that many of my 4th grade students loved telling stories. Whether this was telling me about their weekend when they came in on Monday morning, or telling a group what they learned from researching a topic in science class, these students loved sharing stories.
Taking advantage of their love of stories, I often challenged them to write their own stories based on the genres and topics we read as part of the reading curriculum. Reading their stories showed me a lot more about how well they’d learned the material than a multiple choice test could ever have done.
While I hope my students learned a few things from me, I know I learned some valuable things from them when it came to those writing challenges.
STORY IS KING
As a college student, and especially later on in graduate school, I studied literary criticism and structure in depth. I read assigned books with the intent of looking for narrative form, character development, and sociopolitical meaning. Now, while writing my own novel, it’s sometimes hard to not think about those things.
But my students didn’t care about any of that. They just wanted to read a good story. And ultimately, when they had a writing challenge, they wanted to write a good story.
Writers have to consider character, setting, and themes. But ultimately, good writing begins with a good story. If the story contains plot holes or is just plain boring, readers won’t care. Through study and practice, I’ve learned a lot more about writing as a craft than what my 4th grade students knew. But their love of stories taught me where to start.
–>Start with a good story. The rest will follow.
CHALLENGE YOURSELF
When I assigned writing projects to my students, it wasn’t about giving them something to do. Writing across the curriculum gave my students more opportunities to apply what they had learned, and prepare them for writing requirements on assessment tests.
But when they challenged me to write the same assignments, I accepted. On several occasions, I had my students write their own stories based on what we had studied – things like fairy tales, cultural traditions, etc… When they challenged me to write the stories, I accepted mostly to show them writing could help them apply what they knew. In the process, I realized challenging myself to write different types of stories boosted my own creativity.
–>Creativity comes from challenging yourself to go beyond your comfort zone.
SHARE YOUR WORK WITH THE WORLD
While I never required students to share what they wrote in front of the class, I gave them the opportunity to read their stories out loud. It always surprised me not only how many students shared, but also the types of students who volunteered to read. I had a number of students who were more on the introverted side, and some with learning disabilities who struggled with reading or speech. When some of those students volunteered to share their work, my teacher Spidey-sense tingled. I loved that they felt confident enough to share their work.
When my students shared their stories, especially those who previously wouldn’t have felt confident to do so, they taught me the importance of fighting self-doubt. Writers are notoriously protective of their work. But what’s the point of writing a novel if you’re not going to share it with anyone? At some point, you have to finish the work and send it out into the world.
–>Sharing your work requires overcoming self-doubt, but your work needs to be shared with the world.
Most teachers will tell you that they learn from their students. Sometimes it’s seeing a student reach out to help another. Or, there’s a group of students who organize a donation drive of some kind. Among other things my students taught me, I still use the lessons they taught me about writing and being willing to share my creative work.
Whatever those learning moments are, adults in any capacity – teacher, parent, neighbor – can learn a lot from the kids around them. Be willing to listen when a child asks you a question or tries to tell you a story. You never know what you can learn from their sense of curiosity and willingness to take a risk.
***What lessons have you learned from a child in your life? How do you try to help kids share their stories?***
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