brave writers and writing

Around this time last year, at the end of a full day and long week, a colleague handed me this piece, written by one of her fourth grade students.

And it’s been on my mind ever since. This piece did what beautiful writing should do for a reader.  It got me thinking. It tugged at my heart. One line’s brilliance even made me a little bit envious. Immediately I wanted to sit down and try to craft something like that. It’s honest and raw and true. Everything gorgeous writing should be. And did I mention it was written by a fourth grader?! 

But this kind of from-the-heart writing doesn’t just happen. This writer is part of a classroom community where she feels safe and known and heard. That community has been nurtured from the first moment of the first day by her teacher. This kind of writing rarely happens early in the school year. It is late winter, early spring writing. This kind of writing happens when a teacher of writers goes looking for something more- something beyond the five paragraph essay, something that allows for rule-breaking and risk-taking and then that teacher shares that something more with students. This kind of writing happens in a classroom where there is space for small moment stories all day, every day. It happens in a classroom where when work is shared, others ask, “How did you do that?” and the writer decides to compose another piece about how to write an honest, heartfelt essay. It happens in the kind of classroom where writers know and admit that writing is hard, that some pieces are awful, that some days are full of frustration. It happens in a classroom where the teacher is a reader and writer and where writing is everywhere- on the walls, in the halls, on sticky notes and corners of whiteboards. It happens in classrooms where a teacher knows that not every writer will produce something like this, but every writer will write something, and that something will be honored.