Making Writing Meaningful For Youth

When Gallagher says, "Tests come and go, but attitudes about writing can be lifelong” (Gallagher 93) it reminds me of many people I went to school with. I never really thought about how writing about things that I was not interested in would mark me in a negative way. After reading Gallagher’s chapter 5 I started to think about how I feel about a writing assignment and most of the time I do not want to do it but as far as writing in general do not mind it; although I can see how there would be negative feelings towards writing. Most times a teacher in school assigned something I remember it was about something I did not care for and so I never put all my effort into the writing. But when it came to a research paper where I could choose the topic I was so excited to write about something I cared about and put my best foot forward. I really enjoyed the two guiding principles of a writing classroom. I agreed with the first principle the most: “Sometimes we have to take a step backward before we can move forward.” The principal is self-explanatory. How can students excel and be highly skilled of something they are not good at in the first place.

On the other hand I agree with the myth of the boring topic. Much like Gallagher I too would change things around in the classroom and give the topics the state demands a different twist. In order to do something like this in your classroom I think it is important to see at what level is every student in and writing and get to know them as people. It is sort of connecting to the idea Christensen has in chapter two talking about teaching narrative writing in the classroom. Every student or any one in general has their own narrative and their own point of view and so that means every student will bring a different style of writing to the classroom. I think teaching narrative in writing is important especially personal narrative writing because like Gallagher says what better way to teach writing than to show students to love the beauty in it. I think that personal narratives can be the root of a sense of community in the classroom to match up with the idea of Christensen’s read along. When the classroom feels more like a community than an instructional setting students can have confidence in themselves, their peers, the teacher and ultimately do well in academics.