From Fighter To Writer: How Writing Transformed an Angry Student

Nayana goes deep with poetry and emerges
loving herself and learning

This is the second of my bi-weekly story series call Brilliant Minds, about children who have made quick and remarkable progress in reading and writing through the use of the Higher Way and the Happy Teacher methodologies (Please note the names have been changed)

A month after Nayana wrote her first story, we witnessed more transformation. It came during the admittedly difficult assignment to write a poem about loving yourself. For an hour, Nayana angrily insisted “I got nothing!” All the other students had written their first drafts, received editing, and were busy typing their poems on the computers. Nayana, meantime, kept pouting, crying, and complaining that she had “nothing!” When, finally, Nayana found something, it was practically a slap in the face. She wrote that she loved herself only when she was “fighting,” as in “punching and kicking people.”

Internally, I was somewhat taken aback.  But I remained calm and applauded Nayana for getting started. I then asked a classmate Nayana admired and trusted to encourage her to write more and gently prod her to rethink when she loved herself. As Stacie settled into cheering on Nayana, I focused on helping other students make edits.

About a half hour later, Nayana erased her paean to pugilism and began anew. She wrote that she felt love for herself when she was dancing, doing gymnastics, and outdoor activities. She concluded, “It feels powerful to love myself.”

After Nayana finished that poem, the gloves were off! This child, who had for most of the school year refused to engage in classroom discussions and who had rarely, if ever, completed an assignment, was going to land body blows on every learning challenge that arose. All we could do was back up, and be amazed.

A week later, we worked on rhyming sentences using Word Families. Rhyming was difficult for all the students. Nayana seemed dazed by it. But refused to give up. She threw herself into the world of matching ending sounds day after day, assignment after assignment. She gracefully accepted my feedback and guidance and never complained, cried, or ran for cover in a closet or underneath a desk. She simply boxed it out. After two weeks of taking punches and throwing them back, Nayana mostly, on her own, produced a series of mostly complete, mostly rhyming sentences, with much better spelling.

Nayana’s ultimate triumph was that by year’s end, she had found the confidence of Muhammad Ali as she stood at the blackboard and proclaimed, “I am a writer!”

The secret sauce: Making our classroom a safe space for all students to honestly express themselves, and grow at their own pace was critical, as was patience and praise for every effort they put forth. Providing opportunities for students to read their own stories aloud and do art projects with their written works helped make writing relevant and offered more occasions for celebration. And who doesn’t love a party? What’s not shared in this blog but will be in future blogs was that we mixed writing assignments with word games, which helped students learn from one another and in new, fun ways.

 

Art pops the cork on reluctant student’s brilliance

This is the first of my bi-weekly story series call Brilliant Minds, about children who have made quick and remarkable progress in reading and writing through the use of the Higher Way and the Happy Teacher methodologies (Please note the names have been changed)

Nayana was a student of mine at DC school.  She refused to write a word for the first two weeks after I returned to teach at the school from mid-March to mid-June. Instead, this third grader preferred to draw, color, cut paper, or, worse, run to hide in cabinets or under tables. In many ways, she was like a volcano – quiet and serene on the outside, but roiling with intense energy on the inside.

On April 4, the Monday after Spring Break, during a journal entry warm-up, Nayana found her voice. She made an entry for six days. Every weekday, except Friday, however, was misspelled. There were errors in most words. Verbs were missing or used incorrectly. Every sentence was incomplete. Yet, Nayana wrote for the first time. And she wrote more about Spring Break than any other student. I was thrilled and so was she. I had been searching and praying for the keys to ignite the learner in Nayana. After this surprising burst of productivity, I kept pushing.

The next day, I unpacked a bunch of art supplies that came in after my plea to friends for donations. I sought out art supplies with the specific idea that giving Nayana permission to draw, paint, and color in class could open her up to engage in other learning activities.

First thing that morning, before diving into traditional subject matter, I invited Nayana and three other students to sit in front of brand new easels with brand new paint, paintbrushes, and paper. They each received a new painter’s apron. They literally jumped for joy, and instantly fell in love with the freedom of expression through art in our classroom. These daily sessions typically lasted 30-40 minutes. That day forward, Nayana became a different student, and, much to my surprise, grew to enjoy writing.

Three days later, Nayana drafted her first story based on our science vocabulary words about climates. This story also contained multiple errors but made much more sense. Best of all, it boasted a strong, witty narrative. Titled, “The Bad Day,” it was about a boy victimized by every type of climate and climate-related element: an earthquake, the heat of the desert, water from a lake, and even the sun, which thought John “looked ugly.” But John’s bad luck changed to good when, fleeing a blizzard, he ran until he found himself in front of a volcano, jumped in, and survived!

Yes, it made me laugh out loud. It also later occurred to me that Nayana was kind of like John – she had survived the most adverse situations imaginable, and finally, when she owned her only option, her volcano, she fought like mad and survived.  Nayana’s story also helped me to see clearly what had been bottling her brilliance and stopping it up with a cork. I couldn’t wait to see what else was on its way out.

I look forward to your questions about how you can inspire such a revolution in the Nayanas in your lives.