Slice of Life 2024: 23 of 31- Coaxing and Coaching a Writer

  It's March, and March is for slicing.  Anyone is welcome to join us through Two Writing Teachers, slicing, sharing, and commenting on other slices! 

  

  

Because this slice turned into more of a half a cake (an analogy that works well with this story, and you'll see why), I'm going to share it in two parts. Come back tomorrow to see what happens in the story-writing life of M. I have a feeling this child will generate many more slices in my career. 

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Last week, I worked in a second-grade classroom, focusing on M. M. has recently entered our district's SIT process, becoming the focus of a team of teachers and specialists and becoming the recipient of targeted goals and explicit instruction that could document growth or lack thereof. Among other concerns was written expression, my ticket into the process and the room. 

The class has been studying fairytales, but as I sat with M. and talked to her, envisioning a possible story, she struggled to follow the trajectory of a fairy tale scaffold. On the one hand, I admired the glorious adventures her  magical dolphin was having as he tried to escape the shark who was going to destroy his home and eat him, I also knew there was no way she'd be able to produce the words that would relay the underwater odyssey, To be honest, at many points in her rendition, she paused and admitted confusion. 

There are times when I'm working with a child like this, and I have to go into my duck stance. Some of you may relate. It's that stance when I have to look very calm on the outside-- like I know exactly what I'm doing and I understand the child completely. Meanwhile, under the surface, my brain is whipping around faster than ducks' feet, trying to figure out the pros and cons of various responses and instructional moves. 

As she talked, I was creating an internal table of what I noticed and what I could do, what worried me and why, what sort of identity she had as a writer and how it could lead to a stronger one, the progressions upward of what she was doing and little nudges to build a VERY fragile writer up without having her deteriorate into a puddle, a very real and well-practiced possibility. I'd been warned about her emotionality and her propensity to dissolve. 

All that being said, there was no way that she was going to write the Dolphin Odyssey yet. 

I suggested that the two of us create a series together, a series with a main character named Dan (a fine c-v-c name.) M. wanted the character to be Polly, and I agreed. I needed simple. Beginning, middle, and end. And something that M. could get behind. Something appealing. 

I don't like to take choice away from children and tell them what to write, but I'll do it when choice is getting in the way of production, knowing that once a child gets better at production, they can usually manage choice better, so I presented M. with a few Melanie-designed scaffolds, made on the spot-- remember... my feet were paddling HARD!)... that leaned into the Goldilocks scaffold of too much, too little, and just right. 

"I want the cupcake one," M. said, to my delight. I wasn't sure she'd go for this since it involved the temporary abandonment of dolphins and sharks. 

-----TO BE CONTINUED----