“It seemed without fail that if I put the kids together to write, it worked out better than I ever imagined.”

One of the major challenges for teachers of writing has always been finding ways to stimulate student buy-in during the writing process.  The days of spending time on work to please the teacher are gone for most, if they were ever really here in the first place, and students crave more authentic opportunities to share their creativity and opinions with a wider audience.  Often, however, these opportunities are daunting for teachers to implement and maintain, especially in the current environment of rampant national and state testing.  How does one carve out the necessary time to allow writing and the creative process to flourish while adhering to curriculum and content in the subject area classroom?

My guest this week has found an answer that works for his students at his school. Tom Conway, NVWP alumnus and 7^th grade English teacher at Thornburg Middle School in Spotsylvania, VA, has been promoting authentic writing through poetry slams since he first started teaching ten years ago.  After graduating from the NVWP Summer Institute in 2014, he was encouraged by mentor writing teacher, Stephenie Fellinger, to jump start an idea that had been scuttling around in his brain for a bit – a student writing center at Thornburg Middle School.

It Starts with a Slam

A yearly poetry slam is Conway’s first success story.  He’s been sponsoring it since his first year in teaching, when his mentor teacher at Walker Grant Middle School in Fredericksburg, VA, Trish Parker, brought him on board to facilitate with her.  Parker, now retired, had been conducting a slam for years, and Conway continued the tradition, taking it with him when he transitioned to Thornburg Middle.

Conway runs the slam through a nine week directed study course in poetry that he conducts for CORE classes.  He explains, “The main thing I tell them is that I want good poetry. I’m not taking the “I am…” poems where you fill in the blank or the simple formulaic poems.  We talk about point of view, we study similes and metaphors, and we do work with poetic devices.  This year, I used some of Nick Maneno’s lessons on found poetry and Lisa Renard-Spicer’s lesson on concrete adjectives and abstract nouns.  I expect the best.”

Conway says that his middle schoolers seem to struggle with essays and creative fiction: “Even the best students have a hard time with the structure, punctuation and dialogue; poetry, they can do.”  He equates this with poetry sometimes allowing the writer to make his or her own rules to follow.  He says, “It’s relatively short, and students don’t have to write five paragraphs, which for some reason is torture for a twelve year old. By the end of the nine weeks, I have more of them actually writing poetry than not.  I get a poem from every single student at the end of the year to compile a poetry book.  Then we have a poetry slam where I ask parents to donate prizes, gift cards, etc., so it makes it exciting.  Usually, I have about 50 or 60 kids sign up for the poetry slam.”

Conway loves the fact that this student driven concept really works, and he knows it’s because the students are creating an authentic product.  He says, “The poetry book is not really that big of a deal as far as what it is, but when we do the poetry unit, the kids write with that specter hanging over their heads.  Something is going in that book, and that means they care more than if they were just turning poems in for a grade.  It’s not just another pointless exercise.  It’s not just another multiple choice test. It’s actually something that people are going to see, and they care when people are going to read it.  It’s the same thing when they are reading their poetry out loud at the slam.  When they’re getting up in the classroom to read it, they don’t care; when I call it a poetry slam and put it in the forum with prizes, they get noticed.  Not all of them want to do that, but enough of them do that it ends up being a pretty big deal every year.”

 If You Build It, They Will Come

Conway didn’t have a specific plan for the writing center going into the school year, but he sought two outcomes from it: he wanted it to be a resource in the school where kids could find writing help from their peers, and he wanted to create a space where they could simply write without agenda.  He announced the writing center’s opening in September 2014 and promoted it in his classroom, but he had no idea how it would be received among the students. Conway says, “I set the opening for a Thursday during the second week of school, and 25 kids showed up.  I didn’t expect that at all. Not only that, but they wanted to write!  They wrote fan fiction; they wrote poetry – anything.  For a while they were just coming to have a place to write.”

Some were Conway’s former students who had moved on to 8^th grade, but others were 6^th graders and his new 7^th grade students.   He was pleasantly surprised by the diverse mix from all three grade levels at the middle school.  He decided to open the center’s door during the school’s directed study period at the end of the school day, and while it was a bit more difficult to run while his own group was attending his session of study time, he found it somehow worked.  He had 6^th grade students coming in with grammar packets to get help from 7^th grade students.  He found others came simply to work on personal writing projects.  Conway explains, “The kids would come in and I’d team them up with older students who could help them out.  I had 24 kids in my room, and they were all working.  I didn’t have to help them.  There they were, all leaning over these packets or working on essays in 7^th grade.  I’ve never seen 7^th graders do that.  It seemed without fail that if I put the kids together to write, it worked out better than I ever imagined.”

Conway says another unexpected outcome from the open writing center was watching students who hid behind social affectations break out of their comfort zones.  Students who were socially awkward found it rewarding to be “in the know” in the writing center.  Those who hid their insecurities behind arrogance allowed that to drop away when working with others as mentors.  In short, the response to working with peers made a huge social impact for some marginalized students, increasing buy-in among the population as a whole.

  

If They Love It, They Will Own It

Just as Conway was counting the writing center as a success, he found his students weren’t finished surprising him.  Near mid-year, a few ambitious kids approached him about starting a school newspaper.  Conway was secretly delighted, but he played it cool knowing full well that brilliant ideas are sometimes a dime a dozen in middle school.  Conway told his students they could start the paper, but they would need to initiate it and run it themselves.  At this point, the newspaper would be after school. He would only act as a sponsor.

One of the students, Danika Irish, took up the banner for her Governor’s School project by setting up and designing a website and encouraging peers to write for the paper.  The TMS Times was born! Conway says, “At that point I got more involved because it was really happening.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve tried to do things with my 7^th graders, and I end up working ten times as hard as they do.  When I try to start stuff like that, it doesn’t excite them.  Some of them will go along with it, but when it comes from me it’s just another thing that a teacher has asked them to do.  They’re not motivated in that case. They started this project, and I didn’t have much to do with it in the beginning other than offering them the space and sponsorship.  I would offer resource help if they came to me with a problem, or I would try to find someone to help, but the implementation was all theirs.”

Conway says the group promoted a contest in the midst of writing the newspaper, and some students submitted poetry.  He would like to see entries increase in such contests, but he thought it was a strong first run.  He adds, “Ten years into this, and I’m still learning how to get 7^th graders to get excited about projects – or middle schoolers in general.  They talk a great game, but their actual delivery leaves a little to be desired sometimes.  Getting them to meet a deadline is hard, especially when it involves following directions or submitting things according to guidelines.”  Despite the challenges, Conway says he is impressed with how motivated the kids are to work on a paper that is in their hands.

If They Own It, Will They Want to Keep It?

That is the big question, right?  How do educators introduce and then foster a life-long love for good writing and communication.  Is authenticity enough?  Conway faces this conundrum as the end of this successful year comes to a close.

He says, “The problem I’m having now is how to roll all this into next year to keep it going.  In Spotsylvania, we’ve got Google Classroom, and every student has an email account.  Those who are interested could stay plugged in over the summer.  It wouldn’t be a problem to submit writing that way.”

Conway plans to keep the writing center Facebook page up and running, and he’s already had students ask to continue the newspaper over the summer.  “I’m sure we can keep it going,” he says, “If they want to get in on the dialogue, they can email me.  That’s what we did with writing center; it was the first thing that we had set up.”

Conway also hopes that students continue to pursue other outlets for publication.  One of his students was recently published in Teen Ink, the first to do so, and others were encouraged by his success.  Conway muses, “It’s really cool to see that they’re pushing this stuff among themselves now.  There are a few who are really motivated to make things happen, and it seems to be starting a writing culture at the school.”

 

Follow Tom Conway and ask him questions about writing centers and poetry slams through his educator’s blog.