Writing is scary. It’s scary for almost everyone, and I think one of the reasons that that is the case is because we see examples of perfect writing around us all the time. Think about it. Books, magazines, newspapers, signs, everywhere you look, there is perfect writing. And I think what happens is a little bit like imagine walking into a baker, and here is a pastry case, and in the pastry case are croissants and petit fours and tarts and beautiful ganache-covered cakes.
And what we say is, “Okay, there’s a poem. There’s a story. There’s a song.” Now make that. Go ahead. Make that. Here’s a bowl. Here’s a spoon. Here’s some ingredients, and we all know that it would be really difficult to make one of those beautiful pastries. Well, we see these beautiful pieces of writing in the world, and we are saying to students, “Make that.”
We don’t often see examples of writing that are messy, that are problematic, and so one of the things that I do is encourage teachers to make mistakes. Making mistakes is liberating, and watching an adult make a mistake is not only liberating, but it’s very informative.
So I encourage teachers to write with their students, to make mistakes and to share those mistakes out loud with students, to talk about that process, to let them see their own handwriting, to let them see their own mistakes, to actively look for pieces of writing that aren’t perfect, and to understand that that whole process is nothing that is magic.