Poetry Friday round-up with my dear friend, Amy, at The Poem Farm.
Mrs. Simon, I don’t know what to write.
Oh, no! I don’t have anything to write about!
I have writer’s block today, Mrs. Simon.
These words echo in my classroom regularly. Why? Because we are all writers. And we all know that writing is hard.
I asked my students to write long about a book we are reading. (Global Read Aloud: Fish in a Tree by Lynda Mullaly HUnt.) You could hear the sighs. For some reason, that bad word…long…sent them into total fear. So I saddled up to the computer connected to the board. After stumbling over the necessary technology to get them to see what I was writing, I set about modeling a long writing.
I actually surprised myself that I could do this on-demand-in-front-of-everybody writing from nothing. But I realized that it all comes from practice. I just started typing and the words came. My students laughed at my typos as I was trying to type quickly. They noticed that my long writing was only 140 words. The assignment became less intimidating.
Yet, one of my best writers sat in front of her computer not typing. And it seemed the longer she stared at the blank page, the harder it got for her to start. I didn’t have a very good answer for her. It happens. We’re writers. We are going to have those days when nothing comes to mind. So I let her leave class with this instruction, “Think about what you may want to write about and we’ll start again tomorrow.” Some writers need time to think.
I know this is Poetry Friday, and you are asking yourself, “Where’s the poem?” Sometimes with writing, you need to write about what you need to write about.
Kielan is a writer. She is in 6th grade, and I’ve taught her since she was in second grade. She’s had her share of writer’s block, but she is connecting with Ally in Fish in a Tree. This is her long writing about how she was bullied like Ally.
In Lynda Mullaly Hunt’s book Fish In A Tree, Ally’s at the restaurant where her mother works. Her mother is a waitress there. While Ally is at the restaurant suddenly her “friends” walk in. Shay and Jessica walk in the restaurant and start talking to Ally.
Ally tries to resist them, but her mother thinks she should talk with them. Her mother doesn’t know what Shay and Jessica do to Ally. They talk to her about the sympathy card Ally gave to their teacher. Something similar like this happened to me too.
I was in 4th grade when it happened. A girl named Emily was in my class. Every time a teacher was near she was nice to me, but when there was no teacher near she was mean to me. When she was nice to me I would reject her and then I would get in trouble.
She sat right in front of me in class and we were kind of enemies. I had to read aloud in class and answer the question. I read the passage right, but I got the answer wrong. Then she got called on and she got the question right. She looked at me, gave me a mean look, and then rolled her eyes. After school she saw me in Mcdonald’s at Walmart. She called me smart, her friend, pretty, and nice, only because my mother was around, but then the next day at school, she called me dumb, mean, her enemy, and ugly. She made me think I was dumb. Just like Ally felt in the story.
I made my own quote. “Trust no one” and “Never trust a phony with anything”.–Kielan
Reflections on the Teche 
A lot of great thinking comes from “writing long.” I admire you for writing in front of your students – there is so much joy in learning together. Please give my best to your new crew, and Happy Poetry Friday! xo
I love that you gave your students time to think! And what a wonderful assignment so kids could express their feelings and struggles in a safe place.
When the heart speaks, even long writing seems short. Your student let her heart speak, and we can all relate to her experience. We’ve all known game-playing people who are not what they seem. I’ve seen the author speak. She’s a wonderful person, very real and approachable. She inspired me to try to organize all my random little ideas, and start to form them into the stories that are always churning in my mind. I hope her book inspires your class to let their voices be heard, as well.
Lynda is an inspiration. I met her at NCTE last year. I still wear the lanyard she gave me with the words “Great minds don’t think alike.”
I like that. LOL She is funny, too.
Love that you’ve read Fish In A Tree, & suspect also that this poem by your student might help others write, too. It’s so hard to ‘tell’ someone that another is bullying, so good for her! It seems you helped many with your modeling, & sometimes, as you said, it just doesn’t happen. Thanks for sharing all of this, Margaret!
Kielan’s long writing is interesting. The book obviously opened her up. I love it when writing does that for me, when I read a story, poem or essay and suddenly experience ideas bubbling up and the urge to get writing. In a way it’s like being in a conversation, only not with an actual present person, but with what they left of themselves on the page.
You are such a great mentor/teacher/friend, Margaret! I was touched by Kielan’s story. There’s something about the injustice of someone who pretends to be nice when other people are around that really drives us all wild.
Oy. I appreciate this post, and I also appreciate what you do, Margaret. It’s hard enough to listen and respond to my own children’s woes of growing up, but if I had a classroom of 20 children…? It takes a special person… someone like you.
We’re raising thinkers who are writers, whether it’s poetry they write or book responses. They will learn to live (or write) through the block, because the un-blocked feels so good!
Social aggression among girls is so tough to deal with, because they hide it so well. I’m glad Kielan is already learning how writing can help us process, while reading shows us we’re not alone. Hugs to you!