Critically Thinking about the Craft of Writing

Writing: it's a skill that serves many different purposes.  From making a grocery list to composing a research paper,  writing is a inevitably everywhere.  For some individuals, especially those who are just learning, the task may seem daunting.  As elementary teachers, it will be our responsibility to inspire children to overcome their hurdles.  Elizabeth Hale, author of Crafting Writers K-6, offers several suggestions on ways to approach how to write, but there is one method in particular that stood out to me.   Although this many seem obvious, we know that there is a direct correlation between reading and writing; additionally, many of the books that children read involve pictures.  These pictures are not just arbitrary, but they instead fit within the context of the story and reinforce the plot, providing imagery as a means of summary or an alternative way to read the text.  Since children are exposed to this early on, why don't we teach children, particularly those who have "writer's block", to write based off an illustration that they draw rather than to base an illustration off of what they write?  To me, it seems that this process would allow for the kids to subconsciously get their creative juices flowing.  Incorporating numerous details by "zooming in" on a particular area of a "whole story drawing" would allow for a bland story to come alive.  As seen in Figure 1, I drew a picture that I think would be typical of an elementary student.    To be quite honest there is nothing overly interesting about this picture on a surface level; however, if the student took a closer look at the boxed region of Figure 2, a more interesting story could develop.



Figure 1:  A "whole story" picture" that an elementary student may try to draw. 





 Figure 2:  The boxed region is representative of the zoomed in portion from which a student may be able to add details.



               If the student were to "zoom in" on  the boxed portion Figure 2, he or she may be able to ask questions that allow for a more detailed story to unfold.  Why would a bee have the desire to fly around a flower?  Was it the smell of the flowers that drew the bee or the vibrant colors?  What kind of scent: sweet or sour? Is the bee going to land on the flower? If yes, for what purpose? Are there any sounds that may be heard (e.g. the bee buzzing)? I think you can get the idea.   As an elementary student, I never applied this method, but I truly think that it would have helped me to think about how an interesting story  could develop if I had learned that there is nothing wrong with drawing a picture first. 

                Not only did I consider some of the approaches that Hale suggested, but I also began to think about the writing process, itself, in a whole new light.  For some reason, I have never directly labeled  the writing process to involve critical thinking; instead, I ignorantly have reserved the this term for subjects like math and science.  I mean how could critical thinking linked to writing? At best, I would consider critical thinking to be linked to the content within the writing rather than the writing, itself.  But a light bulb went off when I began to read page 78.  Here, Hale suggests allowing students to discover the ways in which punctuation affects reading and writing for themselves rather than just explaining it to them.  By completing an exercise like this, students are forced to use their critical thinking skills to make a connection between how something is written and how something is read or even interpreted.  Furthermore, since every story contains some kind of punctuation, a writer has to put on their "thinking cap" and begin to think critically about " every mark on the page" since there IS a meaning behind every single mark that a writer includes.  Thus, the act of composing a sentence involves as much critical thinking as the process to develop the content within each sentence. 

In conclusion, from this reading I was able to discover new methods for crafting good writers through the "zooming in" method that can be applied to not only illustrations but also sections of writing. Equally important, I was also able to shift the way I typically regard writing.  Little did I know that I was subconsciously underestimating the power that a sentence can hold when crafted thoughtfully.