Choice is Key. Choice is Access.

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In about two weeks, school will begin for me. It may be three weeks away for others. Yet, we can all agree, the summer is in its twilight and soon, very soon, we will meet our newest students. Often, new students come expecting to have knowledge delivered to them: "Are you going to teach us grammar? Tell me what I did wrong. Tell me what I need to do to get an A."

And, yes, I understand that approach to learning; it is appropriate for some aspects of education. However, in a few weeks, not only will a new school year begin, but new writer's workshops will embark in thousands of classrooms--where answers are not given but discovered.

And it is in these classrooms where students will be invited to join the teachers in uncovering answers, truths, and technique.  

I find that students rarely see this model coming. They enter the writing classroom with preconceived notions. They carry rumors and incomplete fragments of experiences from students who passed through the classroom in previous years. 

Most, during that first week, will be absorbing the predictable structure of writing workshop as they experience it for the first time. Most will focus on the explicit meaning of writing workshop: writing space and time, reading nooks, and frequent invitations to confer. As teachers, we will patiently wait for student attention to digest the implications of the implicit element of writing workshop: the gift of time and choice. Time and choice--freedom--will stop some students in their tracks. For others, it will provide an early comfort.

Poetry helps me ease students into the world of time and choice with writing. Poetry helps me relieve the pressure of being invited to write on the first day of class. And the second day. And the third.

We write every day? some may wonder.

We start by talking about and writing about poetry--not so much what does it mean, but what we notice. Students can not be incorrect. These early conversations go a long way towards establishing a foundation of a comfortable writing community. 

When one student notices a word choice, another might notice a full line, while others might note the punctuation, the organization, the spacing...

Often during these early conversations, students may not know the terminology of what they are referencing. And in other cases they know the terminology--such as repetition--but do not necessarily think of it as a writer's tool.

This open forum can take 5-10 minutes in a class period or longer if the need arises. It enables an environment of inquiry and conversation. In this structure, the teacher plays the role of recipient, listener, and guide--we adjust to the students. We are not in a hurry to point out the repetition in a poem if they do not see it right away--perhaps repetition comes in another poem tomorrow or next week. Perhaps all we discuss today is the fact that the poem made us laugh, or think, or sad.

The consistent use of poetry in mini-lessons throughout the writing workshop can also be supplemented with children's picture books. Again, these books are short enough for students to read through within the structure of a class, and they so often deliver a powerful connection when we ask, "So, what did you notice?"

When invite students to tell us what they notice, we build vocabulary, a tool box of writing strategies, and confidence. The better students become talking about writing the better students become as writers because when they can articulate--think--writing they can own it.

As Lucy Calkins writes in The Art of Teaching Writing, "Teachers...will learn about some poets, teachers, and children have answered the question of what's essential in poetry, but rather than telling our students these characteristics, we'll want to invite them to join us in finding out what they are."

This is the key to the power of writing workshop. This is the key we invite students to turn because once they understand that this key exists, they realize that the key fits perfectly inside their locks. They can insert it, turn it, and pop open a world through writing that they did not believe they were capable of accessing.

Reading the World: 1. Nigeria

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In an effort to help students grow as readers, we conference one-on-one about their choices. How they find books. What they like, don't like, want to try next. So much of the reading in my classroom is driven by choice.

Some conversations drift towards goal-setting. Specifically, we discuss reading books by authors from different parts of the world or books based on characters from diverse cultures. We discussed noticing authors: where they were from, what was unique about their life experience, and what details made it into the authors' bios.

It was a new way for some of my students to find books. And some found it an interesting challenge.

Swallowing my own advice, I decided I wanted to read Americanah by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie. It would be--as far as I knew--my first novel by a writer from Nigeria. It arrived and took a space in my book pile beneath my standard, comfortable fare of nonfiction and contemporary fiction: Napolean: A Life by Andrew Roberts, H is for Hawk by Helen MacDonald, All the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr, et al. I have enjoyed the 12 books I have read since early June.

And then I started Americanah. For the first 75 pages I felt uncomfortable. At arm's length. Painfully aware of my inability to connect with the characters or the experiences of an African getting one's hair braided in America, I felt impulses to abandon the book.

I stuck with it because the discomfort of not knowing is ultimately what I want to coach my students to overcome. Exposure to fragments of the world--even if it is through a novel--is desirable.

As Americanah developed, I found my reading gaining momentum. In the back of my mind I forgave my lack of comfort and just let the story take me with it.

By the time I reached the last 100 or so pages I took breaks to browse for my next uncomfortable book--the next book to stick a finger in my chest--the next book to challenge me to look out and abroad. To pay better attention.

I found Ann Morgan's blog, A Year of Reading the World where I was introduced to a word which described my reading habits: anglocentric. Ann Morgan wrote this about herself and I connect with her. I can admit this about myself and seek to change it.

Ann challenged herself to read at least one book by an author from all 196 countries. On her blog she lists all of the books she read by country. And so, now, I will start to work my way through the As and order my first few selections to start blending into my book pile.

Multicultural literature goes largely untouched in my classroom even though I have several dozen selections of diverse books on a clearly identified shelf.

And even though my students have written about their own cultural backgrounds and family histories, and I have book-talked multicultural titles, man of my students's reading lives also look anglocentric.

The challenge is bigger than me, but clearly, the challenge starts with me. I need to be a better model.

I am wondering how multicultural or diverse books do in other classroom libraries? And I am wondering what people discover about the reading choices of their own students or children? Do we contribute to the anglocentric reading model? Is it avoidable? And, if I can ask just for the sake of conversation, is the problem I am alluding that it may be?