October 20, 2019 was the National Day on Writing (#NDOW)(#WhyIWrite), and because Bryan Ridley Crandall asked me to, I asked my students to respond to the following questions: Why Write? What is writing? Who writes? Why should you? And—new this year—Where should we write? Because fall in New England is not always beautiful but has been giving us many gifts of sun and multicolored leaves these last few weeks, I took my students on a walk around our high school campus. Since the school was built in 2005, students and other artists have been adorning our hallways with wonderful works of art. Students pass these masterpieces day in and day out, but don’t often get the chance or inkling to just stop, stare, ponder, and write about them.
As we sat in the courtyard to begin crafting our responses, I composed a few thoughts of my own.
Dear Bryan,
I took my students on a tour of their campus today in order to explore the different places that we might write. Although it’s chilly, the sun is bright and the colors inspiring in our courtyard this morning.
Why write?
Because I have to. Writing is the way I know what I think, how I feel, and what I need to/want to share with others, and what I should keep for myself. Writing is my favorite form of expression. Like dance or art, writing is an illustration of who I am.
What is writing?
Writing is words on a page (or electronic medium). Writing a length Facebook post is often harder than writing an essay. Writing is communication, it is art, it is breath and memory and feeling.
Who writes?
Teachers write. Lesson plans, feedback on student writing, emails to parents and administrators, comments on shared documents with other faculty, and of course, our own creative work. Many teachers I work with writing blogs, poetry, memoir, and fiction for both young adults and other adults. My students write. They write in their journals every day, they write in online discussion boards, they write emails upon emails upon emails. They write essays. In my class, they also write poems and personal narratives; short stories and flash fiction. They write comments on each other’s writing.
Why should I write?
For all of the same reasons that I already do write, and also: to communicate with the world.
Where should I write?
Anywhere that I am comfortable, and anywhere that I am not comfortable. Sometimes I write in order to survive the discomfort, to understand it. I love to write outside, listening to the crows cawing and the leaves (what is left of them) rustling in the trees. I love to write in museums, soaking in the colors and textures of the art on the walls, embraced by the silence and hush of the big spaces around me in which I am so small and yet so significant a participant. I write on buses and trains; I write in classrooms and offices. I write in a Moleskine journal and on my computer.
Ubuntu,
Jen
(mostly) full disclosure 