Why Should Students Write?

First off, I would like to say that I walked into a 7th grade classroom yesterday. As I looked around the room, my eyes lit up! There was a Brushstrokes Bulletin board with examples of different ways to mix up student writing! I was so pleased to see this and after reading over student's creative pieces, I could see many of the brushstroke techniques mingled into their work. It's great to see some teacher's taking advantage of great instruction.
As I have been in and out of different classroom for the past few months, it has come to my knowledge more than ever now the issue with student writing. As I read over the eighth grade and ninth grade student essays, it saddens me to realize how inconsistent and redundant writing is for essays and creative pieces. From their introduction to their transitions between paragraphs, it is pretty awful. I understand while reading the papers that they are 13-15 years old, however, they are learning to write like robots because of standardized testing. "I think football is the best sport because of this, this, and this...." By only learning how to write one way, it is lowering their creativity. When asked to write a creative piece, they have no idea how to even begin. They want to know what the requirements are and how they should write. "What should my graphic organizer look like, Miss Miller?" That's the question I received by most of the students. It honestly made me want to contact the Education Department in PA and tell them what they are doing to our students. It is awful.
Introducing creative writing and journaling is one of the first things that I will do at the beginning of my student teaching next semester. Journaling is a safe place for each student to go and create a little piece of themselves on paper. While there will be times where prompts will be necessary and used, I want to allow the students to use their notebook as a place where writing it okay if there are grammar mistakes, misspellings, redundancy at times. As the months progress forward, their writing will automatically improve on its own.
As well as journaling, bringing in the brushstroke method as well as promoting writing contests, creating a wall for student work, creating writing bulletin boards, teaching how to write smaller, writing about what they are smart at or interested in...etc, will be included during my teaching (hopefully (: ) It is very important to make good writers and not strictly for standardized testing. It is necessary for the real world, because no matter what job market a person is in, writing will be included. It is important to get students to realize this too. I hear a lot of talk about, "Writing and reading is stupid. When am I ever going to have to use reading and writing?" I am half tempted to make a wall dedicated to this question and list a bunch of answers so I can direct my students over to this wall when that question appears before me.
Students should write for themselves and hopefully when I am a professional, I will have an impact on students and will teach them that writing is fun and with writing comes great power.