Teach Students to Fail Successfully in Writing

          

Why would a teacher, whose main job is to support students' learning and help them believe in themselves, tell you to teach students to fail? One of my biggest struggles in writing is the fear of failure and I don’t want my students to let fear of failure keep them from writing. Students need help to see those failures as part of the process rather than letting it shut down their writing. Those failed attempts help create a writer’s identity.

Even though I teach my students about growth mindset, it doesn’t seem to transfer to writing. In math and science students know that we are learning totally new content like multiplication and division. In engineering they know that you are creating a new structure solely based on an idea and will need to make changes as you go to improve the design. Those content areas are very concrete and often linear so students are not too discouraged when they don’t get it right away. They understand that it is just more practice or more trial and error that is needed. 

In writing however, it’s so much easier for them to say “I’m a bad writer” or “I hate writing” and just give up. I need to get students out of the mentality that  failure in writing is bad and instead see it  just like the engineering process. The design process is:  ask, imagine, plan, create, and improve. This is taught as a circular or continual concept because you may have to do the steps multiple times to get your design to work. I want the writing process to become continual for students too so they see their perceived failures as just another step in the revision process to get to the desired outcome.

Part of the difference in their attitude towards writing is that it is not a totally new concept like multiplication or division. They have been writing words for several years by the time they get to me and they think they should already be a skilled writer. They often see writing as simply the amount of words on a page without understanding craft and structure. The more words, the better the writing in their minds.  I can see the crushed spirit sometimes in my students when they see my correction notes because they had felt successful by their sheer volume of words. This lack of understanding of writing craft leads to believing that they are a “bad writer”. 

In his book, Mechanically Inclined, Jeff Anderson mentions that we should focus on “craft over correctness” and suggests that just as we do not mark up student art then we should also not mark up their writing. I’m making this my new mantra so that students do not start off feeling like “bad writers” just due to simple grammatical errors. Anderson also talks about using mentor texts to show the link between grammar and craft so that while reading like a writer they will automatically start to correct their mechanics as they work on their writing craft. 

Another point where students can feel writing failure is with formulaic writing when their writing doesn’t fit the formula. Forcing students into a particular formula so that they can meet a rubric requirement is not authentic writing. Mentor text is key to allowing students to see many different styles of writing rather than one formula. In Wondrous Words, Katie Wood Ray talks about using mentor text to have students read like a writer. That means inquiry based discovery of the craft of writing. Next year I will use three different mentor texts to show small moment stories in very different ways to start off the beginning of the year writing. Then during their inquiry students will notice how language is used and apply those skills to their own small moment writing. This will create meaningful connections and real world applications of language skills while using their own voice and style rather than a specific formula. Mentor texts show students the beauty of language and how it can be manipulated rather than pointing out a “failure” in their writing because they didn’t follow a specific formula.

Along with mentor texts, I want to use mentor authors. Students only ever see the finished product of an author so it seems like their writing is always perfect. We want them to read like a writer so they notice amazing craft, but then when their own writing doesn’t look like that right away it can cause feelings of failure and wanting to give up. I found a playlist on YouTube from NBC News called “Writers Speak to Kids” and there are 17 different popular children’s authors interviewed on their writing process.  I will use these interviews at different points in the writing process based on particular author’s advice. For example Mo Willems said “If a story is individual like a person is then they can’t start the same way,” when he explained that sometimes he starts his writing in the middle or end of a story. He also said  “rewriting is the key to writing” and explained that he writes as much as possible the first time and then goes back in and rewrites to trim down his story many times. Jacqueline Woodson explained that she rewrites as she is going and reads her writing out loud to hear how it sounds.This is amazing advice to help students get started and to see that everyone’s writing goes through many failures and changes before it is finished. 

Link to Mentor Author Videos

The use of authors as mentors will also help the students with giving and receiving feedback. Unlike math, writing is much more personal and therefore makes us vulnerable. Writing also takes a lot of time and effort and many teachers wait until the finished draft and then have students revise and write again, but they are tired and might refuse. Other students feel like having to make changes means that their work is bad, so they should just give up. This year I had a student who was an amazing oral storyteller, but would write as little as possible and say he was done. Then he always wanted to share and would tell us an amazing story that was nothing like what he had written. This type of writer would benefit from peer review to hear that his story is not coming across the way he wants because the writing is so limited. However, my students usually struggle to provide feedback because they are not sure about what changes need to be made or how to explain that to the writer. This is where mentor text and mentor authors can help out again. Having a lot of examples and reading like a writer will help students see what good writing looks like and how to talk about it. Then listening to their favorite authors talk about rewriting will help students understand that receiving feedback is not a personal attack, but revision is just part of the writing process for all good writers.

Using mentor texts and author interviews will show students what good writing looks like and  how failure is an integral part of the writing process. They will be excited to not only fail, but share those failures with others because they know that it is leading to their writing success.