#educator memes

Writing Instruction Galaxy Brain Moment. Adapted from “Expanding Brain Meme Generator” by imageflip, 2019, retrieved from: https://imgflip.com/memegenerator/Expanding-Brain

Like many non-subject area educators, I often look at my lack of dedicated time with students as a barrier to my role as an educator. As a high school librarian, I’m going to have students coming to me for research assistance or for tech support, or to check out books to them for independent reading. The most dedicated teaching I’ll do in a year will probably be for a Freshman English class where I’ll teach students how to do some basic research.

But just because I don’t have the dedicated teaching hours doesn’t mean I’m not an educator, it just means I’ll have to get more creative about how I teach. When it comes to writing, something I never thought I’d teach, knowing how to create opportunities for student writing that are not centered around the classic essay, but that are short and fun and that students want to engage in because it makes them feel good about themselves is something I know I can do to develop a culture of writing in my school.

Short writing to learn activities, asking students to make lists of the best books they’ve read all year, making them think about it, is something I feel can be useful. They can hand them in to me, sharing them privately, so I can see what they’ve enjoyed and make suggestions for future reads, helping them to develop a deeper understanding of genre and story styles.

Public writing activities like asking students to write book, game, or television reviews to display in the library space encourages students to feel empowered in the library. It also develops a sense of ownership to their writing and lets them connect with peers through writing and reading, as students who see that they like something someone else has written about may start a conversation.

What excites me most is the possibility of holding a creative writing club, or some small writing competition events in the library. There was no creative writing curriculum when I was in school, and according to most high school students I’ve spoken to in the past few years, there still isn’t one at their school. Kids are creating writing everyday on social media, for tiktoks, in journals and when they text their friends. If I can offer them more outlets and be a guide along the way on how to improve their writing for entertainment and for academics, I’ll count my work as a great success.

Going from not thinking about teaching writing at all, to the realization that I’m the ideal in school writing support staff and opportunity creator for writing has been an unexpected journey, but one I’m glad to have taken.

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