Billy Collins’s poem “The Effort” from Ballistics (Random House, 2008) begins by asking the reader if anyone would care to join him “in flicking a few pebbles in the direction/of teachers who are fond of asking the question:/ ‘What is the poet trying to say?’” How many times have we stared at the blank faces before us, wondering how to make answering the question matter? Why are we so fond of asking the question in the first place? And why aren’t we succeeding in getting our students to feel the same way we feel about what we read? Why we write?
Socrates is the one who said, famously, “The unexamined life is not worth living.” As we move into the 21st century and the world changes before our eyes, how does an English Department prepare students for what is to come and prevent itself from becoming irrelevant and obsolete, from not mattering? If what we are preparing our students for is the rest of their lives, then perhaps the answer to that question lies in the ancient time-tested words of that great philosopher. Not only does literature offer up to us truths about humanity and reveal to us aspects of ourselves, but it also offers an understanding of ourselves as reflected in the ways we study it. At Lawrence Academy (Massachusetts), the English Department realized that if we didn’t take the time to answer all these questions, we might work our way right out of a job, if not develop cricks in our necks from dodging pebbles. After more than 20 years of struggling with this dilemma, we have discovered a solution, a solution with two parts. First, answering the question will matter if the students, too, are trying to say something. As Collins’s poem suggests and as I have learned from my own writing life, if they write their own poetry, their own stories, learn the basics of showing and not telling, express themselves indirectly, using all the tricks that expressive writers use to convey meaning, to suggest ideas, to provoke thought, students will earn a greater appreciation for and, perhaps, understanding of, what the writer is trying to say.
Second, answering the question will matter if the effort required transfers beyond the confines of the classroom and into the rest of the students’ lives, and if the meanings and the messages somehow have implications beyond the grade on that day’s discussion or paper or test.
The Lawrence Academy English Department has adopted this outlook in much of its teaching, and with its blessing over the past 15 years, I have developed a course called Honors Writing, which not only teaches students how to write poetry and short fiction, it also arms students with self-knowledge and the ability to access it even as it grows so that they can be better students, and, eventually, better employees, better friends, better citizens. Honors Writing achieves those lofty goals because the most important texts the students examine are themselves.
Now, before you dismiss this as just another argument for creative writing as a therapeutic tool in the curriculum, listen to what the students have to say, because unlike the mostly mute students awaiting the lunch bell in Collins’s poem, the students who take Honors Writing not only have things to say, they are encouraged to say them, and what they have to say is worth listening to. A student from the class of 2007 wrote, “Honors Writing is not simply an English class in high school. It opened up a whole new area in my head. I entered a room where I felt totally comfortable. A place where I belonged to myself, where I didn’t need to care about what other people think or like, a place where, well, you know, I could just be myself.” Her testimonial and others like hers evidence Honors Writing’s effectiveness in teaching a way of thinking and of being that embraces Socrates’s intentions. So, how do we achieve that effect of belonging to oneself with rigor and clear expectations? How do we legitimize this philosophy in an English curriculum, even award it honors status? The formula is actually quite simple.
A divisible yearlong course, each term of Honors Writing has a distinct focus: poetry writing in the fall, short story writing in the winter, and independent projects in the spring. A student may not enroll in the spring term course without taking at least one of the other two courses. All three courses have two major components. The first component is the study of and practice in manipulating the tools for poetry and fiction writing. The second component is the study of and practice in manipulating the writing process itself.
The year-long course is structured in a two-tiered system. The first tier addresses the first component of the course: poetry and fiction writing, the basic tools of composition in each form and the practice of their use. This first tier is the most recognizable from the traditional English teacher’s perspective. Throughout these first two terms, the students are, indeed, the text. Not only does their writing follow the time-tested rule for beginning writers: start with what you know, but the students are required to be attuned to their own writing process, to become increasingly aware of it, and to become adept at manipulating it, an effect that is achieved through daily self-assessment, introspection, and reflection.
This brings me to the second tier of the course’s structure, and the second component, both of which are non-traditional. The two themes of the second tier are Habits of Mind (HOM) and Poetic Sensibility (PS). When I explain to the class what Habits of Mind are, I tell them to pay attention to how, when, and where they do their work, what kind of work they do in those conditions, and the successes and failures of that use of time. Some students find they write best in the early mornings or in the afternoons, in the back of the library, or late at night at Barnes and Noble. Some students find they do their drafting in the evening in the dining hall and their revising in the early morning or during class workshops. Some find that they have to develop very different habits of mind for poetry composition than they do for fiction writing. In detailing their awareness of these two themes, I encourage students to be specific. How many pages did you write? About what? Where did you write? For how long? As they start out, I comment on their observations, showing them where they are detailing HOM, where they are detailing PS.
Poetic Sensibility is an awareness of what inspires a creative person and how that person creates situations in which he is inspired. For example, a student may find himself writing repeatedly about his family cottage on the Cape, or about brothers, or about regret. Or a student may be enchanted with metaphor, drawn to natural imagery, ironic situations, cosmic questions. He may use photographs or listen to music to get into the writing frame of mind. He may go for a run, take a nap, eat a snack, take a shower.
One of the ways in which I encourage students to reach a deeper understanding of what poetic sensibility means is through the Resonance Presentations, which take place halfway through the fall term. As preparation for the presentations, students are asked to consider what resonance means, to reflect on what resonates for them, and to choose one piece of art that resonates for them to present to the class. The class develops a list of what kinds of questions they want their classmates to answer in their presentations. Usually, they want a sense of why their classmate considers his chosen piece to be art, of how the relationship between this piece of art and their classmate developed, and of what makes the piece resonate.
One student presented the final scene from the movie Rudy. He told the class he had first seen it when he was 11 years old. He said he still gets goose bumps whenever he hears the theme music, let alone sees the scene. He explained that the movie was his first experience with being deeply moved by a piece of art. Ever since then, he has measured the effect of other works of art by that profound moment when he was in sixth grade.
Another student brought in a framed portrait of herself with her dog. She explained that her whole life she has loved dogs. In fact, when she was a little girl, she wanted to grow up to be a dog. She said she went through a very difficult time in middle school when she discovered that a learning disability she had been thought to have was really a mood disorder. Every day at school was a challenge. She came home exhausted from coping with her new understanding of herself, and the only way she could decompress was to lie down with her dog. The portrait was a gift her mother had given her after her dog passed away, and she kept it on her desk to reassure and calm her.
The presentations themselves serve as object lessons in resonance. Throughout these presentations, students are each other’s text, providing rich and varied experiences in what resonance can mean in a personal way, which they can then transfer to their own work throughout the rest of the year. After the third day of the Resonance Presentations, one student from the class of 2006 commented, “I saw this incredible diversity in class today and incredible beauty. I have to say that today I genuinely loved Lawrence Academy more than I ever had.”
A final element in this tier of the Honors Writing formula, an element that exemplifies the student-as-text component of the course, is the Daily Log. In addition to drafting and revising, the students keep daily records in three categories: how they have used their time outside of class, how they have used their time inside of class, and what they have learned about their habits of mind and their poetic sensibility in these two settings each day. Unlike the first two terms when both logs and drafts of poems and stories are assessed, in the spring term, the logs are the only element of the course that is assessed, other than midterm and end of term presentations, both of which are conducted in a manner similar to the Resonance Presentations.
The logs are the essence of the course, the self-examination that makes the course “worth” taking. Though the students may strain against them, they find the daily enforcement of introspective reflection ultimately rewarding. Each day, I write a quote on the board. The quote is always a comment on writing, sometimes from a published author, but more often the quote is an excerpt from the log of a student who has taken Honors Writing in the past. These quotes not only guide and inspire the current students, they once again serve as a reminder that the students are their own texts, that what they have to say matters, and that they are supposed to say it in their own way.
In the spring term, students practice “living the examined life.” Based on what they have learned in the previous terms, they come up with their own projects, set their own goals and deadlines, and make choices about how they will accomplish those goals and meet those deadlines. They are allowed to change their goals, adjust their plans, and head in new directions at any time, so long as they talk their thinking through in their daily conference with me and record and reflect on those adjustments in their logs.
Because the learning matters to them, the spring term’s lessons are invaluable and authentic in ways that make the learning last. As a student from the class of 2007 stated, “I realize that in order to succeed you need to fail, but not failing in the sense you got a bad grade, rather failing yourself and your own expectations.”
A year later, another student confessed, “I was afraid I would slack because it’s such an independent project, but I found you actually do the work because you assigned it to yourself. It’s the independence! I do my English homework above all my other work because I actually want to do it. I’ve never been so happy not to have a rubric.”
And a student from the class of 2004 exulted, “The feeling that I can accurately convey an emotion makes me confident in my voice and what it can tell me about myself.” And another student in 2006 echoed him, “I begin to realize things about myself I didn’t know. I love finding out about me.”
Over the years students’ projects have ranged from beginning a romance novel to co-writing an anime screenplay. One student edited his grandfather’s letters. He created the book, designed the cover, and wrote an introduction. Another student combined her passion for photography with her love of poetry. After her midterm presentation, she wrote, “All I really have to do is what I’ve been doing all year: be honest to myself and all the kids in my class. I finally figured out I don’t have to make up answers to get a good grade or to make it look like I know what I’m talking about. There are no trick questions and no right or wrong answers, just my own truth.”
So, do all these Honors Writing students go off to become writers or English scholars of any kind? Almost none of them do. Does that mean Honors Writing is not a successful English course? Not if the goal is to generate self-knowledge and self-possession. Not if what we are after is producing graduates who know how to live a more fully-examined life. Not if we are after encouraging them to develop their voices and the courage to exercise them. Not if we believe that those capabilities are relevant to success in the 21st century, in any century, that embracing those goals is not essential to the survival of English in the high school curriculum. And not even if all we want is for the answer to the question, “What is the writer trying to say?” to matter, because by the end of their year in Honors Writing the students want to know not only what the writers they read are saying, what it reveals to them about themselves and their own writing, but they also want to know what they as novice writers are trying to say as well.
Thus, with the blessing of the Lawrence Academy English Department, I found a solution and a formula to help us answer all our questions -- to dodge the pebbles, if not to head off all flicking in the first place. Since then, we have worked together to remember what drew us to the study of literature and language, and to base more of our teaching on those compulsions, to recognize that in some ways the world has changed and will keep changing and that in other ways it will never change – we read because reading illuminates the self and that is the most genuine and authentic means to the answer to the question, “What is the writer trying to say?” As for addressing how the world is changing, becoming ever more distracting, quicker, with less time awarded to reflection, we have discovered we can serve an additional purpose: an English classroom can become the haven where students slow down and open up whole new areas in their heads.
As I have transferred the teaching of the Honors Writing course to other colleagues, other classes in the department have evolved into Lawrence Academy English courses that are about examining that very self that literature illuminates for us, and examining it even more closely than the literature requires because the most illuminating text is not the one written by the person whose name is on the dust jacket, and that is what every writer has always tried to say. What’s more, this philosophy is sustainable. Student-as-text will never be outdated; it will always matter, because, according to Socrates, it teaches to the only life worth living in this and in any century. Some lessons, after all, remain timeless.