All of my teaching is informed by my most difficult parenting task. One of my children had undefined “developmental issues”—with an emphasis on undefined. No one could tell us why it was happening or how to help him.
Without a diagnosis, I started to research techniques used for students with various special needs. That’s where I happened upon the concept of “learning through success,” which upended my ideas of what education is for and how it works.
Traditional approach: learn through failure
Traditionally, a teacher in any discipline tells a student what is “wrong” with their work and gives them reason to correct it. Often, those reasons are based within reward/punishment systems designed to make students focus on their failures.
But students in special ed fail every day
By definition, a student who needs “special” education is failing in some way that a typical educational approach can’t remedy. So when a student is sent into the special ed system, it’s because of failure.
Imagine: If you were designing an environment in which students fail at the most basic tasks, what’s the worst design you could come up with?
Answer: Traditional school.
Why focus on success?
Good special ed teachers don’t focus on their students’ failures simply because there are too many of them. Focusing on success allows them to inspire their students and motivate them.
The fascinating thing about focusing on success is that lagging skills almost always come along for the ride. The teacher is aware of the lagging skills and taking them into account, but not asking the student to focus on them.
First of all, I believe that all students have special needs. But that’s beside the point.
Focusing on success, it turns out, is a more effective way to teach all students. Focusing on success doesn’t mean ignoring your students’ mistakes, but it does mean appreciating their successes and motivating them to do more.
In my classrooms, I notice that when I point out one student’s success in a task, other students who have failed in that task feel more motivated to work on it. And when a student’s success is pointed out, they feel more motivated to drag their lagging skills along.
All students learn asynchronously
State-mandated standards and curriculum can give parents the false impression that their student should always achieve in the center of some designated “typical” student. The truth is, all students learn at different rates.
Focusing on success allows students with lagging skills to feel motivated and successful in their areas of strength.
It’s about motivation
Focusing on success doesn’t mean giving students empty praise. And it doesn’t mean ignoring their mistakes and lagging skills. It does mean giving them the energizing feeling of making positive forward motion. And that’s what learning is all about.
And that’s why in my classrooms, we focus on success.
Our kids are immersed in violent and despairing media every day, and it’s affecting what they write and share with each other. From the earliest days of telling tales around the campfire, violence in the stories we tell has played an important role. But not all violence is the same.
The morality of violence is important for students and caring adults in their lives to consider when they want to address violence in writing that they share with others. As I tell my students: Write whatever you need to write. But share only what is appropriate for the context.
Below are some questions that I ask my students to consider before they share work with violent content.
What is the intent of the violence?
Appropriate reasons to use violence
Artwork courtesy of Destiny Blue
Some children writing violent stories have an honest need to explore the reasons behind human violence in an attempt to understand it. In that case, the violence in their writing will raise questions about where violence comes from and what we can do to address it.
Some children use violence to heighten the danger that their characters are in, to bring about a more satisfying conclusion when the protagonist is able to defeat the antagonist. As long as the violence is appropriate within the context, like in the Harry Potter series, this is also acceptable.
Some children use fiction to create parallels to real violence that they have read about and experienced. In this case, again, it is acceptable when they use their writing to try to understand the moral basis of human conflict.
Inappropriate reasons to use violence
Some children have not yet learned that violence in writing is not just a flavoring, like grinding pepper on their pasta. Their intent seems to be to shock and titillate their audience. The violence in their pieces is often couched in revenge fantasies. Usually the antagonist wins in these stories.
Even worse, in some of this writing the protagonist is the evil person doing the violence, and they suffer no repercussions for their acts. Sometimes there is a thin veneer of “the other guy had it coming” that is supposed to explain their characters’ evil deeds, but often the violence is simply there because the writer perceives it as fun or cool. In the words of a teen writer I work with:
“I think they are trying use their edginess to differentiate themselves from their more ‘square’ peers.”
In other words, they are trying to be “cool” kids. This is not an acceptable reason to share violent stories with other kids.
What is the context for the violence?
Appropriate contexts
Artwork courtesy of Destiny Blue
Human stories of struggle often feature some amount of violence. In these stories, an individual or group is subjected to an unfair or discriminatory situation in which they are victimized by a more powerful group.
The Hunger Games is a good example. Katniss is not a violent person and tries very hard to maintain her moral judgment. But the government’s actions force her into a situation in which she has to make the decision whether to kill other people. Although quite violent, this series is deeply moral.
Inappropriate contexts
An immorally violent story sets the violence up as the main attraction. There is no particular justification for it within the context of the story. We are to accept that this is just an evil world, filled with evil people, and so it’s going to be fun to read about them.
Although I can’t come up with a mainstream published example because I choose not to read that sort of literature, Internet memes are rife with this sort of inappropriate violence. One student in my classes shared a piece based on a meme in which the narrator speaks about how fun it is to kill people. There is no context that explains his behavior, and no consequences for it.
Violence without context is always received by readers as a celebration of violence.
What is the nature of the violence?
Children’s stories have been full of violence since the beginning of time. The witch attempts to bake Hansel and Gretel alive! But in no mainstream telling of this book do we get graphic descriptions of the raised bubbles that form on their hands as they resist being put into the hot oven, and the smell of…
OK, I think you get the point.
Violence for children should be largely implied
Artwork courtesy of daveneff-d35ix6m
A child who has been exposed to many violent images will visualize plenty of details that were left out of Hansel and Gretel. But a child who doesn’t have violent imagery in their head will take the violence at face value. The witch tried to bake them, but she failed. That’s all that the child needs to consider.
We do not need to put new violent images into children’s heads. The world is full of violent images that they already live with.
Violence for children should be countered with kindness
A story in which there is only violence is simply immoral and inappropriate to share with children. The story of humanity is the struggle against our worst impulses and toward our better ones. Every religion addresses this struggle and attempts to help believers with stories that show goodness as well as evil. Children’s literature, similarly, has always tried to impart a secular version of this moral view.
The same goes for what our children write to share with others. They need to balance violence in their writing so that they can train their own perspective away from anger and despair.
A Tale of Two Stories
Last year, students shared two stories in one week that couldn’t be more different. I will keep details of the stories private, but here is what they looked like:
Story #1: The “look at me I’m cool” revenge fantasy
In this story, a narrator whose situation is never defined hears voices telling them to kill others who wronged them. There is graphic description of a dead body. There is no reason to believe that the narrator is a decent person who is in a difficult situation. In fact, there’s no context at all. We just hear this narrator telling us about their anger and despair and expecting us to share in it.
End of story.
Story #2: The Jewish diaspora, with creatures
I have no idea whether my young writer knew that they were writing the story of Jews throughout history, but the parallels were striking. In the story, a person who belongs to a maligned race of creatures moves from village to village, attempting to find others like them and acceptance from general society.
There was some violence in the story, including one member of the group being put to death. But there was only one detail, no titillation, and clear understanding in the context of the story that this person’s killing was immoral and caused anguish to the others.
It was also clear to any reader that this story was an exploration of what happens when a minority group is misunderstood and maligned. This was written by a child, certainly, but a child who was grappling with what it means to be a decent person.
Violence can be moral
Children’s fiction without conflict is the Bob books. Dick and Jane. In other words, books that attempt to do nothing but teach reading skills. Real literature explores conflict, and conflict is uncomfortable.
Not all conflicts in children’s reading need to be violent. But there is a place for appropriate violence. I believe that reading Anne Frank’s diary and learning about World War II permanently shaped my view of moral behavior in societies.
I can hardly imagine this, but what if the book I had read was an unapologetic diary of a Nazi soldier who enjoyed killing people…written for children? Even if that soldier had been put to death in the end, the point of a book like that would have been to teach me to despair that humans can act in moral ways.
What can we do?
I’ll end where I started: I encourage my students to write everything in their heads. I encourage them to keep journals and explore their worst thoughts if it helps them.
But when we share our writing with others, we are making implicit moral choices and making explicit declarations of who we are as people. I encourage all parents to ask their kids these questions, and then listen to the answers.
Do you know what the kids they are chatting with are watching and reading?
I’m not asking these questions because I think you’re a bad parent.
I’m not asking these questions because I think any parent can stay on top of everything their child does.
I’m asking these questions because I’m a teacher. Not only that but I’m a teacher of creative writing.
Lately, I’ve become a little concerned about your kids.
In one teaching year, I’ve had more conferences with students, notes to students’ parents, times when I’ve had to stop class and speak sternly…
Not more than other years. I’ve had more than I’ve ever had. Cumulative. My whole life.
This one school year, I have had more students referencing violent memes, more students taking part in destructive and deceptive communities, more students writing about violent fantasies.
It’s not just good, clean fun.
One student wrote a piece in which a murderer was interviewed by police while tied up, listening to other people in the police station being tortured.
Multiple students are ardent followers of quasi-religious online groups that take part in something akin to mass hysteria.
A student wrote a story based on a popular Internet meme about a child murderer and a sexual offender.
A group of students invented a world in which everyone had evil “dark sides,” and then their “dark sides” started attending classes with them, typing nasty things into the chat window.
Today, a few days after a mass murderer referenced a popular Internet meme while murdering people in a house of worship, one of my students referenced that meme in class.
It’s not just my online students.
I’ve asked around. Kids are coming to schools with all sorts of inappropriate materials. Kids are aware of things that you and I didn’t even know existed when we were that age.
It’s not ‘just stories’.
The stories we tell with our children important. Stories shape their worldview. Violence in children’s stories is not new. But despair and hopelessness in media for children is new. It’s harming our kids. It’s harming their psyches.
Have you considered what your child might be accessing that could lead them to despair?
I know this is harsh, but I’m worried about your kids. Humans have faced war, famine, volcanoes, mass migration, and drought. But I think the Internet is, perhaps, a bigger long term challenge to the health of the human race.
Your kids are great. Please take care of them. Please sit down and express interest in what they are doing online. Ask them what interests them. Be there for them to express their fears to.
The most important thing that young writers can do to develop their skills is write, write, and write some more.
In conjunction with writing, young writers should read great writing: fiction, nonfiction, poetry, jokes, text messages…. The form doesn’t actually matter. The more great writing they read, the more the rhythm of language will take root in their heads.
But finally, young writers can be really inspired by books about writing and reading. Below are a few of my favorites for young writers of a variety of ages.
The two adult writers of this book address kid writers as equals: fellow writers struggling to find out what they want to say and to say it well. My students love the advice in this book and they love the “I Dare You” prompts sprinkled throughout.
This is a book full of fun, inspiring prompts. My students love it. But I do ask them not to actually rip the pages…
Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity
Ray Bradbury was probably the single most inspiring writer to me as a young writer. I didn’t discover this book until I was looking for a good book on writing for my more advanced writing students. This is not for novice writers or readers, and at times Bradbury can be a bit bawdy. (One of the pieces is entitled “Drunk, and in charge of a bicycle”!) But my advanced students love it as much as I do. It would be a great one to read along with reading the books that Bradbury references in his essays.
It often takes a whole semester before students realize what all these stories have in common: they are all about books and reading in one way or another. There aren’t many contemporary short story collections for kids that don’t focus on “classic” stories. Although I love the great writers of the past (see Little Worlds below), some kids just aren’t ready to read past the antiquated language and into a world that doesn’t connect well with theirs. The situations and characters in Shelf Life are accessible and inspiring.
There aren’t a lot of great collections of classic stories for kids. I have to say, most of these stories require a high school reading level. I would also venture to say that most middle schoolers wouldn’t have the depth of understanding needed to really “get” these stories. For that reason, I always have to apologize about the book’s title to my teen readers, who may think that it’s a book for “little kids.” But of course, few of the stories in this collection were actually written for kids. They include many of the greatest short stories that have inspired writers for generations.
One of the consistent misunderstandings I see amongst parents, other teachers, and even students themselves is how working on creative writing skills translates to improved skills in “serious” or academic writing. Most people seem to consider creative writing “extra-curricular” and therefore not academically important.
However, research has proven many benefits of “extracurricular” study, such as the link between musical study and improved math skills. Similarly, creative writing embeds important skill-building exercises like the medicine in Mary Poppins’s “spoonful of sugar.” Here are some of those lessons.
1. Any writing is good writing
Writing is a ‘practice.’ No matter what the task, whether it’s texting with friends or writing a poem, using words develops the brain just like lifting weights develops muscles. Exercise is a great metaphor because it’s something that many people detest just the way people detest writing. The common advice you see about getting more exercise applies to writing: find a way to make it social, do it in a location that you enjoy, chart your progress, reward yourself.
Creative writing is something that is attractive to many kids in part because of its social character. No one is going to want to read your book report on “Little House on the Prairie” (apologies to my third-grade teacher), but there’s an audience for your Pokemon fan fiction or your poem about autumn. And creative writing shows progress in a pleasurable way. My students have chosen to write everything from an encyclopedic description of sports cars to a NaNoWriMo dystopian novel.
2. Creative writing uses the same skills as academic writing
Good creative writing features specific, appropriate word choice. Good academic writing features specific, appropriate word choice.
Good creative writing features strong, varied sentences, clearly written. Good academic writing features strong, varied sentences, clearly written.
Good creative writing is well-organized and offers the right amount of information to lead the reader through a story. Good academic writing is well-organized and offers the right amount of information to lead the reader through an argument.
Good creative writing makes the writer’s world come alive in the reader’s brain. Good academic writing makes the writer’s argument come alive in the reader’s brain.
But while many students resist “working” on their writing, they are very open to developing their creative writing skills.
3. Creative writing opens the door
Pretty much every reluctant writer I’ve ever worked with has come to me after someone has “taught” them to write. Usually that someone thought that kids need to learn to write the way they learn to make a cake: Give them a recipe, tell them to follow the rules, expect them to enjoy the product.
But that’s not how writing works. For most people, writing isn’t inherently pleasurable, and introducing it as a bunch of rules to be followed to produce a bad-tasting result doesn’t work. It’s like asking a kid to make a cake out of overcooked broccoli—why bother following the recipe if no one is going to enjoy the product?
When kids are excited to share their work, that excitement translates to a permanent, solid base of enthusiasm that fuels enthusiasm for future academic writing.
Forget the work—let’s “play”!
Recently, one of my online creative writing students expressed great pleasure at the end of class for having spent an hour “not learning anything.” I let it slide, happy that he couldn’t see me at my desk, laughing at the success of my pedagogic deception. My students are learning—they just don’t know it.
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Rip the Page!
Zen in the Art of Writing: Essays on Creativity
This is not for novice writers or readers, and at times Bradbury can be a bit bawdy. (One of the pieces is entitled “Drunk, and in charge of a bicycle”!) But my advanced students love it as much as I do. It would be a great one to read along with reading the books that Bradbury references in his essays.
Shelf Life: Stories by the Book
