Byram sixth graders get lessons in creative writing

Byram - Paula Firmender, sixth-grade language arts teacher at the Byram Intermediate School, welcomes her students to a world of writing by providing frequent opportunities for her students to read, reflect, and write on a daily basis. Her students thus discover the personal and social nature of writing through the writing process she teaches. All students bring a wide variety of experience, attitudes, learning styles, cultures, and abilities to the classroom, notes Firmender. “The wide range of a student’s capabilities is most evident when we teach writing. Writing can be taught best when we create a learning environment, in which the student is directly involved in reading, writing, speaking, listening, and viewing activities.” Earlier this year her students used the writing process to develop their “Memorable Place” narratives. The process includes pre-writing (brainstorming), drafting, revising and proofreading. Later the students developed their final drafts and published them orally before an audience of their peers. The students were encouraged to bring memorabilia relating to their places, so they could realize how these pictures and objects could further inspire them to write more descriptively. These souvenirs became a part of the class “museum” and aided the students as they gave their oral presentations. The students also developed a creative writing activity as an extension of their weekly spelling units. A language link was made as students became familiar with new vocabulary usage within the context of their creative writing experience. The students wrote stories or poems titled, “The Dreary Old Castle,” and then decorated a castle illustration to depict the mood within their writing. These creations were a result of a “language/spelling connection” writing activity. Students are often encouraged to present, display, and publish their creative writings on Firmender’s “Creative Writing Gallery” bulletin board. The sixth graders recently developed their “Precious Gifts” themes through the writing process, and some are part of a current display. Often the students express their thoughts spontaneously in their journals. Some topic responses by the students have been about their impressions of sixth grade as a transitional grade level; their personal reactions to various school presentations and assembly programs; their personal account of events from any viewpoint, while traveling with Christopher Columbus; and their inclusion of important campaign issues if they were running for governor. The journal topics promote fluency and quality of ideas before “correctness.” Firmender believes that when writing is taught as a tool for learning, thinking, and communicating, students will discover and define their individual and social identities. With each meaningful language writing activity, the students grow in confidence to become better problem solvers, decision makers, life-long learners, and possibly, authors in their own right.