Student Writing: A Listening Exercise

As an eighth-grade writing teacher, I routinely focus on reading student writing and utilizing it for several purposes. I am designing effective lessons, creating sound rubrics for assessment, developing peer conferences and monitoring their ability to meet standards and benchmarks. However, I often forget about one of our most important, frequently overlooked roles as writing teachers: our role as listeners.

In this kind of writing assignment, there are no rubrics, no editing marks, no earned points and no final draft. Just reading and listening. Finding time can prove to be difficult, but this is one aspect of writing that is so powerful. Even if it happens only a few times a year, we can help young writers see some of the fundamental purposes of writing: to express, share, think, explore and talk. We can show students that writing can be a valuable exchange and does not always have to be formally assessed or reviewed to be meaningful. We hope that message stays with them far beyond the classroom.

A few years ago, I assigned a writing project at the beginning of the year. Students were asked to write about themselves and tell me whatever they wanted me to know. There was no length requirement. No grade or credit was given. It was simply this: they were talking and I was listening.

It was an important start in showing students the power of writing as conversation. They told me about things that were whimsical and lighthearted: summer vacations, new pets, great concerts. They also told me about things that were deeply personal, like how a female student felt helpless at school because she was being bullied. A young man told me of the isolation he felt as an African-American teenager in a school in which he was by far the minority. A 13-year-old told me how awful it was to lose her mother to cancer, and then have to come to school and focus on her work.

Of course, there were also students that I didn’t learn as much from initially because they enjoyed the freedom to write a small amount, or didn’t want to share about themselves. I had to think about listening to those writers in a different way; maybe they were a struggling writer, or were completely disengaged from school. Listening to what wasn’t there was just as important.

To build on the listening, during a unit of writing poetry, I’d ask students to make a list words they would not use to describe themselves. This way, they could look at themselves from different perspectives.

I’ve also assigned persuasive essays in which students have to research and support their arguments with evidence. They choose issues that not only are they passionate about, but help others to see how they may define themselves. One year, a student wrote about the harms of animals testing because of her love for pets at home. For her, the relationship with her pets was a trusted one, something that she didn’t always have with adults or peers in her life.

So not only was I learning about my students within these writing assignments, but they became empowered because of their role in crafting and controlling the conversation.  They were having an experience that allowed them to see their writing as important. I was there to listen. They were willing to talk to me. That was a powerful exchange.

Timm is a middle school language arts teacher and creative workshop instructor in Iowa.