16. Discovering the Teacher-Writer Within
Becoming a Teacher Who Writes - Let Teaching be your Writing Muse - Nancy S. Gorrell
Nancy S. Gorrell [+]
English teacher and poet
Description
Chapter 16 introduces the concept of teacher-writer and presents the author discovering the teacher-writer within herself. In the process, the author becomes a co-learner as well. The main body of Chapter 16 is organized in three parts – “Writing with, to, and for Your Students” –followed by Interdisciplinary Applications. In “Writing with Your Students,” the author engages in “Poem Challenges” with her creative writing class. While she writes random words on the board, a student challenges her: “Ms. Gorrell, I want you to write to a poem with three words – “blue goo, comb, and a vibrating egg.” The author writes on the spot a memory poem about combing her daughter’s hair that she later titled “Combing a Memory.” In “What I Learned Writing with My Students,” the author discusses how poem challenges generated for her not only authentic writing that matters, but new, immediate teaching lessons as well – the concept of Robert Bly’s “leaping poetry.” In “Writing to Your Students,” the author introduces the concept of poems of address that teachers can write to their students. In “Writing for Your Students: Models for Instruction,” the author offers an introductory lesson in narrative structure from Richard Wright’s autobiography juxtaposed with the author’s autobiographical model, “Shame.” Chapter 16 includes Interdisciplinary Applications for Teachers and Students in which teachers are encouraged to write with, to, and for their students and discipline-related models for instruction. The chapter concludes with Arthur J. Stewart’s “Rat Dissection,” a model of science instruction in poetry form.