A.E. Bayne Editorial

Editorial: Position on Writing

in

The Write Stuff - Virginia
October 2014 

Throughout my years in school, writing was a foundation that grounded me and allowed me the freedom to explore my beliefs, focus my creative energies, and feel successful in a climate where I often felt like the odd one out. From this, I would have to say that my position on the teaching of writing and its use as a tool for learning is one that allows it to remain organic, allows it room to change and breathe, and one where criticism remains limited to what works well in student work, rather than what the student has done incorrectly. Writing is such a personal venture, and no matter which form it takes that must be respected.

Writing should always be approached relative to the writer’s experience. When it grows out of a natural understanding of the world, students have the opportunity to explore any subject on their own terms. Writing is unique in this way, especially when we are locked into a rigid climate of curriculum and standards that may seem irrelevant to many of our students. Our students should have the freedom to approach content with personal connections and by exploring interests as unique and varied as themselves. This authentic connection with the world through writing provides an environment rich with learning opportunities and growth.

Given to change, writing requires room to breathe. It should be viewed as an organic component in our curriculum that should not always be subject to rubrics and grades. Drafts are changeable; nothing has to be forever. Even a final draft may one day have revisions. We should impart to students that the final draft required on a due date or test is simply the best version they can possibly create on that date. It is a vivid lesson on living in the present, but also one of loosening attachments – attachments to ideas about fixed ability, perfection, and mastery. By facilitating an environment where students see their writing as a living thing, we provide a model for the way ideas and constructs in society change and evolve.

Criticism should be limited and constructive in nature. We, as teachers, should focus on what works well in student papers, encouraging them to do more of these things rather than highlighting what is wrong. Form and function should be taught for what they are – tools for communication, for the reader’s ease, and to drive a point home. Some of the best writing happens when the tools are used in ways that fall outside the norm. Writing should be innovation and mind-expanding. This is where we want our students to be comfortable in their learning.

The personal nature of the written craft must be respected. Even as English teachers, we cannot approach this tool as one over which we have actual domain, as it is a tool that is as inherent, unique, and personal to each of us. It is our voice. It is our self.

 

Editorial: Why Writing? Why Now?

Why writing? Why now? Or perhaps that second question should be why not? There seems to be a pervading belief throughout education that writing belongs solely to the English domain, that time and resources prohibit its incorporation into lessons in other core areas of teaching; however, the practice of writing, and drawing by extension, is humankind’s oldest form of communication. For retention of information, for sparking innovative ideas and new connections, writing remains one of our strongest tools. Consistent, content-rich writing practice facilitates our students’ abilities to elaborate, support with evidence, think logically, organize, collaborate, and think “outside the box”. Certainly, the daily practice of writing is crucial for those interested in making it part of their creative lives, because developing a life centered around published writing requires a person to do the work every day. More than that, though, writing well, developing those synapses that allow us to communicate effectively and familiarly with other human beings, simply enriches our lives. I believe that is what we are in the business of doing: enriching our students’ lives through learning. Writing is work, and it can be difficult, but it can also be fun and can readily open a student’s mind for learning.

This summer, I completed work through George Mason University’s Northern Virginia Writing Project, where we ate, slept, and breathed writing for four intensive weeks. Here, teachers from every grade level and many subject areas collaborated daily on ways to incorporate writing into their lessons. Visiting presenters from area high schools, George Mason University, and Johns Hopkins University fitted us with invaluable tools to enrich our students’ experiences through the practice of writing in the coming year. With their modeling as a scaffold, we presented our own lessons, the best of the best writing ideas that we had used in our classrooms. Additionally, we did the work of writing. We wrote morning pages for thirty minutes each day, met in writers groups, developed solid pieces of writing, and published an anthology. As was the program’s intent, we left as teachers of writing who also write.

As an extension of these experiences, I am initiating this blog: The Write Stuff – Virginia. Using my background as a columnist for Front Porch Magazine, I will provide my readers interviews with teachers throughout the state of Virginia who use writing as an integral part of their lessons. Of course, you will see many ideas from English teachers here, but I plan to reach out to instructors of all content areas and grade levels to facilitate a movement of educators who view writing as an essential piece of their teaching philosophy.

Editorial: Personal Histories

in

Front Porch Magazine
September 2014 (pg. 4)

If it has not happened already, there will come a day when you’ll be struck with the realization that life has its own designs, that the place you thought you would be at 30…50…80 is not exactly as you had pictured it, and you will reflect on your story looking for the sweet spots, the turning points, the common chords where it veered from your plan to bring you to this day.  The people with whom you’ve interacted, the places you’ve visited, and the choices you’ve had to make, these will be your history.  In retrospect, the circumstances will give you pause, and the minute choices that have shaped your life will make you dizzy. 

Like many, my personal history includes being a transplant to Fredericksburg, though after many years here I claim it as my home.  I was born in Georgetown Hospital in Washington, D.C., and I grew up comfortably amidst NOVA’s suburban sprawl.  When I was a kid, my father and I often rode our bikes along the W&OD Trail from Falls Church to Reston and back.  We walked to 7-Eleven across the mud fields that would become the Westmoreland Street exit of Route 66, and we traveled to National Airport to eat white chocolate and watch the planes fly in and out over the Potomac River.  My mother and I caught movies at the Vienna Theater on the weekends and wore holes in our shoes shopping at Tysons Corner. As a teen, I navigated the Metro with friends and mastered the Beltway ballet of Route 495 in my first car, a Mercury Topaz.  After moving to Blacksburg for college, after my boy was born at the end of my final year there, and after a short period of living in Kent, Ohio, I moved to Fredericksburg to support my mother and spend time with my father as he battled esophageal cancer.  That was 1998.  That was sixteen years ago. 

Since that time, I’ve made a career of teaching English to middle school students in public school.  Of any job I have ever had, teaching has by far provided me with the most opportunity to change lives, and in return my own has been altered as well.  If you want to experience life’s penchant for steering the course, become a teacher, because every day is a surprise.  For thirteen years I have spent close to 135 hours with my students over the course of each year.  I am keenly aware that I am a part of roughly 1,800 histories, for better or worse, in a small role or large.  It’s quite a responsibility that we have to each other.  But then, shouldn’t it always be so?

My son’s personal history has been written in Fredericksburg. With the exception of yearly visits with his father in California, every milestone has taken place here from the time he turned three years old.   When we first moved, we lived in a townhouse on the corner of Amelia and Prince Edward streets, allowing us to walk everywhere.  We frequented favorite kid-friendly shops, like the sorely missed FUNdaMentals, Jabberwocky Books, and what my son referred to as “the train store” (officially Quilts and Treasures).  His childhood in Fredericksburg wouldn’t have been complete without visits to the soda fountain at Goolrick’s for milkshakes and grilled cheese sandwiches, or the corner Cards and Cones for hard-packed ice-cream.  We often ate at Roma, which is now Poppy Hill, whose spaghetti marinara contained so much minced garlic that we would wake up the next morning smelling like bulbs mashed into the ground.  We would grab slices of pizza at Castiglia’s and read our Sunday Post at Hyperion, much like I see young parents doing today, sharing hot chocolate and muffins or cookies.  He’s been in college for a year now, writing his own history, rolling in life’s waves.

Like my family, each of you has a story to tell, whether to your inner circle or the wider public.  Each is a piece of our community’s history.  Such a simple, seemingly obvious thought at first, but the intricacies of our interactions are nothing to scoff at; though subtle, they are far-reaching.  The stories recorded in Front Porch Magazine over the past eighteen years have impacted multiple histories – those of the subjects, of the writers, and of the audience.  Front Porch has introduced us to each other in unexpected ways, encouraging empathy, spotlighting commonalities we share, and broadening our perspectives beyond what was written in our past.  Front Porch sends us into the community in pursuit of new adventures to add to our stories.  Whether those adventures go as planned is not always up to us, and where they will take us next is what makes life exciting. 

 

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