In this blog post, I will be reviewing the book, Enticing Hard to Reach Writers by Ruth Ayres. I was first attracted to this book by the brilliant hook Ayres had where she wrote about her foster children and how they learned to trust Ayres, then learned to write well.
In this book, Ayres gives pointers to writing teachers on how writing teachers can entice hard to reach writers to want to write in a writing class. At the beginning of the book, Ayres talks about the fact that writers who have suffered a trauma have a harder time trusting the teacher as the traumatized person/child reacts from a place of fear. As the writing teacher, then, you need to find ways to create a bond of trust between the teacher and the child/writer in order to get the writer to open up.
Ayres explores how the power of writing helps traumatized children heal from their traumas through writing. Ayres shares her own struggles as a mother, teacher to help writers who come from 'hard places' or who have not had their souls nourished by only good experiences to ultimately heal through writing.
What I love about this book is how Ayres interweaves her personal experiences with her teaching experiences to produce a book that helps teachers become better writing teachers and help students become better writing students.
Ayres says that teachers should stop teaching writing as a product, but instead create a writing workshop where students learn writing as a process in a writing group where they write draft after draft together as a writing group. Each draft becomes better than the previous draft and the entire writing group peer edits and helps each other write.
In addition, the teacher writes with the students, so students can see writing in action. Rather than pointing out mistakes like in the traditional writing program, the teacher in a writing workshop gently guides the writers along by writing stories with them. She will then show the students her writing. She shows them how she first comes up with ideas, how she develops ideas, and as a result, the students see the teacher write a story unfolding before their eyes from beginning to end. Writing is seen as a process not as a product.
Here are some tips that Ayres provides in her book to help entice the hard to reach writer:
1. See errors as areas of improvement.
2. Notice any small improvements in student writing and praise them for those improvements with each successive draft.
3. Notice how each student writes and what he/she is doing.
4. See errors as opportunities for growth.
5. Build curiosity for students who don't like to write. Get them interested in their surroundings.
6. Teach students how to write down their ideas in a Writing Ideas Journal.
7. Write the rough draft with the student.
8. Celebrate a finished draft.
9. Use a celebration mindset for writing.
10. Have students read their writing to an audience.
11. Publish student work so students feel like 'published authors.'
12. Let students decide what they want to write about or give them an array of choices.
13. Build their genre knowledge.
14. Model good writing.
15. Teach one writing point at a time.
16. Find ways for students to connect to writing--poetry, response to what they read, drawing, or have them write their own stories in their writing journal.
17. Listen to what students are interested in and listen intently. Care about the student and their interests to 'entice them' to write about these interests.
18. Use open-ended questions
These are just some of the many tips that this helpful book includes and it is definitely worth it to buy this book to learn how you the writing teacher can 'entice the hard to reach writer' in your writing classroom.
