Writing My Way Out

Writing My Way Out

“Nobody likes you. Go back to where you came from.” A popular boy from my class whispered this to me as I clutched my dime in my sweaty hand, waiting to buy a carton of milk. I’ll call him Tyler. It was my first day of fifth grade and just a few weeks earlier my family had moved to a new city on the opposite side of the state.

Based on what I remember, Tyler was unkind to me for most of fifth grade and his hurtful comments continued throughout my experience in middle school. Many of my classmates followed Tyler’s lead of how he treated me, like lemmings. I am not sure why Tyler selected me as his target, and I often wonder what kind of pain he experienced to make him disperse hurt to others.

That year I felt like I didn’t belong. I felt like I didn’t matter. I felt powerless to do anything to change my identity at school.

I was a mess.

As I look back now on my tween and teen years, I realize that fifth grade was when I began to struggle with the tension of desperately wanting to be visible-worthy of having friends who wanted to talk to me, while also feeling the need to be invisible-to hide the shame of being picked on and not having friends.

I believed the messages that Tyler told me.

I convinced myself that I did something to deserve his treatment.

Fifth grade was also the year that I started writing. As a going away gift, someone gave me a red diary, complete with a tiny metal lock. Although the lock could be easily picked and ripped off of the small diary, it made me feel like my ideas were private and protected. That diary was never far from my reach, often tucked into my Esprit tote bag or carefully concealed under my Lisa Frank stickered folder so no one would see me deviate from the standard “hamburger” essay about the American Civil War. At home my diary could be found wedged between the box spring and mattress of my bunk bed, out of sight from my mom or nosey big brother.

A glimpse into Trina's adolescent writing 

In fifth grade I couldn’t articulate the words that I needed to. I was ashamed that I was being picked on. I was embarrassed that I didn’t have any friends. I couldn’t talk about it out loud. Yet somehow I could muster the words to write about it. Writing helped me feel like I could talk about how I was feeling, even if it was only on paper. For me, writing helped me cope with my loneliness and bruised feelings and shame. What I didn’t realize then was that this experience helped me learn a great coping skill - how to write my way out. I am convinced that no one escapes from pain. Not really. Feelings of disappointment and sadness are inevitable. I believe that how we deal with challenges is what makes the difference.

Often, as an adult, I find myself dealing with much more heavy topics than unkind classmates. Although I usually write for myself, I craft paragraphs and stanzas about what makes me angry, what leaves me feeling perplexed, and what I’m grappling with in relationships, in teaching, in politics, and in parenting. Natalie Goldberg, author of Writing Down the Bones: Freeing the Writer Within  (Shambhala, 2016), contends that writing is not the same as therapy. I agree, but I also believe that writing can have therapeutic effects. For me, taking the time to write helps me to show up as a better human being, especially when I am sad or angry. It allows me to name what I am feeling and to dig into my emotions in a safe way. I have found that when I have taken the time to write first that I am not as quick to make accusations and act without thinking.

I believe that writing is an important tool that can help us deal with how messy and painful and unfair that life can be.

I read Ralph Fletcher’s Joy Write (Heinemann, 2017) at the beginning of this summer. Ralph’s ideas have continued to loop in my mind ever since. It is a resource that I know I will come back to again and again. He encourages teachers to provide writers with consistent opportunities for what he calls greenbelt writing. In an incredibly simplified explanation (I apologize, Ralph Fletcher), greenbelt writing is low-stakes writing (not graded or as part of an assignment), providing opportunities for students to simply play with writing. This is writing where students have autonomy. He believes that in many cases we have taken the joy out of writing for students. Ralph Fletcher, I couldn’t agree more with you. In helping my adolescent writers to reach proficiency in the writing standards, I know that I have sometimes forgotten that writing is much more than simply meeting standards. I have probably given students the wrong kind of impression in my writing instruction - that writing is only about meeting standards. Reading Joy Write makes me think about how I can give my high school writers more opportunities for greenbelt writing. I want them to experience joy in the act of writing and playing with words.

Yet, I also wonder how I can provide writers with opportunities for using writing like I did as a kid (and as I still do now) - writing for processing and healing.

As a teacher of high school writers, these are two questions that I am currently grappling with: How can I help to empower my students to see how they can write their way out? How do I help writers find joy in writing?