DEEPER WRITING: SILENCE, AND RESPONSE

   

Each day of the CAWP Summer Institute I am privileged to hear the powerful,  always honest, sometimes mournful, perhaps jubilant or angry, and occasionally raw pieces that our teachers are writing and sharing with each other.

Each day I have the opportunity to savor the writing--writing that spans the personal, taking us inside marriages--our own and those we have observed over the years, writing that takes us to meet our parents, siblings, and friends, writing that wrestles with our social consciences, as we examine and analyze our own behavior, writing that looks back, writing that look forward.

Deeper writing...

Each day I have the chance to listen to writing that invites me into classrooms and schools to meet students and co-workers, to trouble the troubling-- or the universally accepted, to ask the hard questions, to imagine the impossible,  to remember and celebrate what we know, and to plan for the unknown.

Deeper writing...

Not only do I have the opportunity to hear powerful and provocative writing,  but also to witness responses to this writing.

What I have noticed in many cases is the respectful, almost contemplative moment of silence that follows such pieces.  One former institute participant referred to the "wonder and wildness in that pause."

We have seen this pause, this space of silence, this sacred waiting and weltering in what we just heard often this summer. The writing has taken us to astronomical heights and stretched our writing chops in titanic ways.

Deeper writing......aaaaah!

Each day of the CAWP Summer Insitute, we are listening to deeper writing.

In a recent article in AdLit In Perspective, an online journal of the Ohio Resource Center, I described deeper writing in the following way:

By deeper writing I mean writing that challenges writers to engage in a thorough search of memory, critical analysis of relationships and situations, and powerful exploration and discovery of themselves and the world.  Deeper writing is writing that digs beneath the surface, underneath

the obvious observations and topics, to reveal that which is in the background, unnoticed and unexamined. It is reflecting with the pen—thinking and writing critically, pushing metaphors to the limit, searching for relationship and relevance where they are not easily detected.  Deeper writing touches both the reader and writer with emotions we have buried or ignored, and it surprises us with fresh perspectives on the familiar. I have found this to be true no matter what the mode of writing—expository or information, argument or academic, narrative or poetry.  In my book Deeper Writing: Quick Writes and Mentor Texts to Illuminate New Possibilities (Holland, 2012), the essence of deeper writing is expressed as follows: Deeper writing and thinking forces us to ask again and again: "What more? What else? Why? And so what?". (p. 2)

How do we respond to such writing?

How do we bring ourselves back from whatever place and space the writing we have just heard has taken us, pushed us, driven us?

What do we say to pain that has been laid bare on the table-- dissected, bleeding, raw?
Band-aids won't work.
Words are initially inadequate-----Silence.

How do we enter in gently to urge the writer in a different direction or an even deeper exploration of an already excavated image?

First the silence.

The silence that meets deeper writing.

How do we enter into that silence to acknowledge the power of the words washing over us?

How do we with words appreciate the work so the author will understand how much their words touched our souls?

How do we make suggestions- big or small -- without tearing apart the fragile threads holding the piece of writing--and its writer's heart --together?

We will....
We will appreciate the work, consider the context and the content, suggest substitutions, additions, revisions.
We will problematize and analyze.
We will reframe and evaluate.

Where are the pauses?  Whose story is it?  How else can it be told?  Who else can tell it?

Would it work better as a poem?  or an essay?

We will do all of that....and more.

We will laugh until our stomachs hurt along with the writer.
We will pass the tissues and cry in concert.

We will learn and question and....all of that... and more
But... first the silence.

First the silence.

Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

Select a piece of writing to share with a colleague.  You may ask for both general feedback or specify a desired focus.

Notice how your writing partner(s) responds. Is that moment of sacred, listening and waiting silence offered first? How are they phrasing and contextualizing their responses?  Does the response push your writing forward?

As you receive feedback both general and specific feedback to your  writing, notice your own responses to the responses.  What are you thinking and feeling?    Is the response helpful?   Do you feel offended or hurt by the response? Do you agree with the responses?

What can you learn from this sharing experience that will inform your sharing and responding to writing in the future?

RESPONDING TO WRITING

How do we respond to the writing of others?

How do we give helpful feedback? How do we make suggestions or give constructive criticism?

How do we tell someone what we think about their words, their writing, their exposed heart ?

There are several settings in which we may share our writing and give and receive feedback.
There are several approaches  for this most delicate activity.

We can sit as partners, side by side, each sharing and responding to the other--or it may be only only one of those partners shares on a particular occasion.

We can gather in a small group of three or four or five, or not many more, to hear a chorus of responses to our work and add our own voices to the chorus for someone else.

We can gather in a large group of writers--- or an entire class-- for a read-around, for a whole group sharing.  
   
Read-around is a strategy for sharing writing developed by Linda Christensen.  You may read

more about this effective strategy in her book, Reading, Writing and Rising Up on pages 14 -15 or in her online article at Choice Literacy entitled The Read- Around: Raising Writers.

In my own classroom, we had several guidelines for large or whole group sharing  that served us well:

• Time may not permit everyone to share, so if you shared the day before we asked you to wait until others have shared.
• You have the right to pass and not share.
• You have the right to receive no feedback or specify the type you  would like to receive. (For example, I would like to hear only what works, or I would like to know if the setting description is enough.)

Whatever the platform for sharing and responding, it is essential to consider the words that we use to express our thoughts about the writing shared with us.  We must strike a balance between approval and useless gush,  between the creative tension of criticism and that fine line that crosses into cruelty, and between an intelligent intuition about useful suggestions versus controlling comments.

In the introduction to my own book, Deeper Writing on pages 10-12,   I  describe how early in the year, prior to our first read-around, we also began to learn language that would support our

responses, providing a scaffold for our opinions, and both guiding and guarding our responses so that we created a safe, sharing community.

I would model the use of this language extensively, and then guide 
students' practice. They easily took on independent use of the language and were able to extend it to include their own language.  




Helpful responses for us included:

• I like... ( words, phrases, sentences, ideas, metaphors juxtapositions, connections, strategies, etc)
• I want to hear more about...(call for more details or specificity)
• I don't understand...(call for clarity)
• I suggest...(specific suggestions for the writer with examples)

• I am wondering if...or I noticed... (general reflection)

If I were still working in my own classroom I would also add the following:

You may want to look at... (pointing to a mentor texts or other resource-- this writer, that book , this poem... or talk to this person.)

In addition, sometimes we need more information or understanding about a piece of writing before we can confidently and helpfully respond.  The following questions have always 
served me well in talking with writers about their writing:

• What are you trying to do?
• Why are you writing this piece?
• Who do you want to share it with?  Who do you want to read it and why?
• What do you feel needs to be revised, still accomplished?
• How can I help?

During the read- arounds or other forms of sharing, students were encouraged to take brief notes so that their responses could be as specific as possible.  

The student receiving feedback was the only person to write on her paper.  Even in partner sharing, this was my policy.  

I often encouraged the use of different colors of pencil or pen for recording feedback for possible revisions --one color for revision or notes made by the writer herself before the piece is shared, and then another color for recording notes made about comments by others while sharing.  

An additional excellent resource that you may find helpful as you set up writing groups and other platforms for sharing and responding to writing is Writing Circles: Kids Revolutionize

Workshop  by Jim Vopat.  Not only does he share many helpful strategies for responding, but also an entire framework for establishing student-led writing groups--including information about topic selection, keeping notebooks, publishing,  time management,  and more.

Today's Deeper Writing Possibilities

Select a partner, small group, or whole group setting in which to share a piece of writing on which you have been working.

Before sharing, reread your own writing and consider  the revisions that you think are needed.

You may want to refer to the previous related post on revision, Rewriting Texts,  for suggestions.

Write a list of the revisions you are considering.

Also write a reflective paragraph about the kind of feedback you would appreciate for you piece.

After sharing, write a summary paragraph detailing the actual comments and responses  you received about your writing. 

What did you learn about your writing? about this specific piece? about sharing and giving and receiving feedback to writing?