What You Don't Know By Looking at Me

Six weeks of my summer were spent teaching writing and co-teaching reading to Ballou High School students in the SHARP (Summer Humanities & Arts Readiness) Program, directed by Gabriel Benn of Guerilla Arts Ink. A large number of our students are enrolled in Special Education and were many grade levels behind in reading and writing. And yet, at just the right moment, with just the right topic, with just the right amount of patience and encouragement, the students opened their minds and hearts enough to read or tell a compelling story. Sometimes the story was brief - only five or six lines. A few teens, though, wrote pages of paragraphs.
Several students explored painful situations, such as loss, abandonment, being misunderstood, being vulnerable to violence, and feeling insecure about their futures. Others gushed with pride in themselves, their friends and family, and with optimism for their futures.
Each student chose one piece of writing to edit and revise over several classes for its inclusion in our anthology, What You Don't Know By Looking at Me. About half the students chose the title as their subject, others reflected on topics such as "I Am From, My Best Friend, If I Could Change the World, and How to Cook Like a Chef."
We who write for a living often write to touch or more deeply investigate and feel. The students this summer remind us that - no matter what they are labeled -- they are as capable of doing the same.

A limited number of free printed copies and e-books are available to educators. Workshops on How to Get 100 percent of Your Students to Write are also available. Email caroline.unchained@gmail.com and put "What You Don't Know" in the subject line.