How to Teach Writing to Teenagers and Everyone Else
I like weird kids, angry kids, sad, bad, and perfect kids. I was searching for a learned quote from an “expert” in adolescent writing—how to teach it—and recognized I’m an expert. But I don’t have a degree in linguistics or psychology or reading. My master’s is in fiction writing. However, I have taught writing to writers for 30 years and most have been young adults, many of them struggling with college admission essays. In college I taught creative writing and freshman composition and in high school I taught AP Literature, AP Language and Composition, Creative Writing, Critical Thinking, and Honors at every grade level and non-honors at every grade level.
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How to Change or At Least Consider It
When is the last time you changed a habit, opinion, or a decision? Why is change so hard? Oddly, some people pride themselves on never changing. Recently I attended a middle-school reunion of many years and encountered four women dressed in white pants and black shirts who acted snobby. The mean girls of middle-school had morphed into the mean girls of middle-age. We relish change in the early part of our lives, growing taller, starting high school, learning to drive and other, less concrete stuff like the first time we disagreed with a parent or a teacher or a friend, not to be disagreeable but because you had your own ideas and opinions. Good writing is all about change, finding a way to describe and detail a before and after. “Once I didn’t care about race but now…”, “Once I thought they were exaggerating the effects of climate change, but…” “Once I thought old people were boring but now…”
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Finding Your Voice
Voice is the distinct personality, style or point of view created by a piece of writing. Writing faithfully to your voice is writing with emotion, with your feelings, passions and dislikes, beliefs, dreams, wishes, fears, and attitudes. The reader wants that connection: she wants to feel what the character feels, to see through his eyes. Only your voice will be able to give her that. Good writing is a conversation with your reader. You sneak into her mind because you want to answer her questions, help her want to continue this conversation. A strong voice uses the reader’s language, uses the phrases the reader recognizes and understands. No jargon. No complex words if a simpler one will suffice.
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