Ralph Fletcher’s Joy Write came out last spring and I finally got around to reading it. I’m really glad I waited, actually. It’s the perfect time of year to read this book–just as you’re starting to get apprehensive about getting something done this summer but before you’re ready to really dig deeply into the nitty-gritty details. Joy Write is fewer than one hundred pages of conversational, inspirational writing love.
There are so many simple but rich, practical suggestions for building the joy of writing into your classroom. My to-do list on the inside front cover reads:
- collective writer’s notebook
- micro-narratives & micro-memoirs
- wonder journals–collaborative documents? daily wonders? choice bin for notebooks?
- class blogs
- Scavenger Hunt for Ms. Hays’ writing–> why does she write?
- writing/drawing prompt: What’s your bumper sticker?
- maximize use of student writing as mentor texts
Three hours of reading on the patio and I have ideas for 3-4 exciting writer’s workshop structures, several ideas for powerful mini-lessons, and a key strategy to focus on this year.
More than all of that, however, is the challenge and the compelling argument for turning part of our writer’s workshop into a wild space, an untamed, luxuriant site of students writing for themselves and each other. Fletcher quotes his own tweet, “We don’t teach students to write so much as create a safe space where they can teach themselves by doing.” He is talking specifically about writing, of course, but this is what our classrooms and schools should strive for in every aspect of learning.
Fletcher also cites his observations of an authority on play–his grandson, Solomon–who he says illustrates the importance of these factors of intense play: abundant time, open heart, flexible thinking, sly/mischievous/subversive thinking, expectation of pleasure, potential interest in everything (p. 30). Again–he’s thinking specifically of how this applies to student writing, but don’t we want these things for our students? In our classroom? Heck–don’t we want these things for ourselves? If we can cultivate a classroom with abundant time, open hearts, flexible & subversive thinking, where we assume everything is fun and interesting, won’t that inherently be a place of joyful learning?
In Joy Write, Fletcher uses an extended metaphor, comparing student-driven, informal writing to greenbelts–land specifically set aside to be wild and undeveloped, for diverse life to flourish naturally. On a recent weekend, my family met at my parents’ 90 acre property. My five nieces & nephews were there– my brother’s two kids who spend tons of time there, and three foster kiddos, new to the family, who had never really spent time in the country. All four of the older kids (between seven and ten) spent as much time as they could carve out in the creeks and ponds; they found tadpoles in all stages of development and endless numbers of frogs; they gathered fresh eggs from the henhouses, fed apples to the horses, captured and released fireflies, learned what crawdads are and where to find them, and searched for Ivy, the large blacksnake who lives in the garden. They learned endless new vocabulary words, big ideas about ecosystems and life cycles and the needs of plants and animals. They learned new skills and strengths and to be unafraid. They learned to get dirty, to clean up, and to have empathy for living things. They did it all, as much as they could cram in until they fell asleep, and then they did it all again as soon as they woke up the next morning. They had an insatiable appetite for asking, doing, and learning.
The whole time I was reading Joy Write, I was thinking about these kids: the kids who had grown up in this abundant world and had their curiosity carefully stoked, and the kids who had grown up without it and for whom it had been turned on like a switch with time and choice and the space to be wildly, luxuriously, unjudged and unrestrained. To be joyful.
I want to take these principles into my classroom, into all aspects of my day.
I want my students to get their hands dirty and let their imaginations run wild and ask a million questions. I want them to be fearless, to wake up with unrestrained energy and curiosity. I want them to find joy in writing, joy in learning, joy in life.
Read it. You just might find it nurtures those things in you, as well as helping them find a wild space to grow in your classroom.
The Integrated Curriculum Classroom 