Successful Authors Describe How They Write

In this Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy article, Michael Sampson and Evan Ortlieb (St. John’s University) and Cynthia Leung (University of South Florida) report what they learned from a survey of 39 best-selling and award-winning authors:

• Note-making – Having a way to capture thoughts at any moment “was deemed quintessential to their writing process,” say Sampson, Ortlieb, and Leung. But authors used a variety of methods – journals, small notebooks, notepads, computers. Patricia McCormick said, “My notebook looks like the one from the character in A Beautiful Mind. Scraps of dialogue, random details, etc. No one would understand it but me.”

• Preplanning and outlines – Some writers, like Lois Lowry, carefully plan and script stories. Others start with an outline but tweak it as they proceed. “I work best with a loose structure,” says Alan Brennert. Some authors talked about the extensive research they did and the effort they made to get into their characters’ heads. But most of the writers who responded said the story, content, or voice of each character reveals itself during the process of writing rather than in any systematic planning. Jack Gantos said, “I start with some sort of inspiration – some bit of story – and then discover and steer it as I’m writing.” Joseph Bruchac said, “At some point, the story always takes on a life – and a voice of its own.”

Adrian Fogelin said, “Preplanning too much deadens that voice for me… “[T]he energy that propels the story is generated by the act of writing. If I had to preplan my books, they would never get written… The way writing is taught in school robs it of all the fun. Most people are not born planners – and that includes many professional writers – but writing is taught as if planning were the only way to arrive at a good piece of work. Not making allowances for us ‘blurters’ kills many young writers’ interest in the process.”

• Revision and editing – Some authors said they revised their writing as many as ten times – and some not at all. “The many iterations and revisions that these highly successful authors make to their manuscripts are in stark contrast to the writing process that occurs in schools,” say Sampson, Ortlieb, and Leung. Almost all the writers said they edited on the fly, with a “big edit” when the writing is complete and ready to be shared with others. What about responding to feedback? Jerry Spinelli said he never reads reviews of his books: “Both praise and damnation tend to drive you outside your work, make you self-conscious, and self-consciousness is poison to art.”

• Research – There was wide variation on this aspect of writing, with some authors doing extensive research and others doing almost none. Some used libraries and the Internet while others relied on interviews and visited the site where a story was set. Jerry Jenkins said that “nonfiction has to be unbelievable; fiction believable. The definitions have switched. That means heavy research, regardless of the discipline.” Wayne White said research is important for credibility with readers, but “there is a danger in continued research becoming an excuse for not confronting the more difficult work of writing.”

• Collaboration – Most of the writers are not part of a writer’s group and wish they were (a busy travel schedule is a major impediment). Those who are find a group of colleagues very helpful. Some share their writing with loved ones or a small group of “alpha readers” before publication, but most do not. Randy White had this to say about sharing a work in progress: “No. Absolutely not. Committees build bridges; individuals write books. Talking about a story burns creative energy that should be reserved for the actual work.”

• Challenges – “Creating the large structure of the plot is most difficult for me,” said Adrian Fogelin, “– as I think it is for many writers. The big picture, which is the plot, can be intimidating.” Eve Bunting said her greatest fear was “being boring.” Wayne White said, “For me, all aspects of writing are challenging. It wasn’t easy when I started, and it has only gotten harder. Good writing is the selective elimination of details.”

Sampson, Ortlieb, and Leung believe the authors they surveyed have an important message for K-12 teachers of writing: “Professional writers are not all the same, and the same goes for student writers… Remember that the writing process is inherently idiosyncratic; teachers must help student writers find what works for them, by showcasing and modeling a range of options through a process-oriented writing pedagogy to avoid the pitfalls of a locked step-by-step approach.” A few other take-aways:

-   Learn from the experience of published authors.

-   Encourage students to experiment with different ways of incubating their ideas.

-   Have students try writing on a computer, on paper, or a combination.

-   Remind students that “the content, style, and voice are largely determined by the task at hand and one’s background experiences.”

“Rethinking the Writing Process: What Best-Selling and Award-Winning Authors Have to Say” by Michael Sampson, Evan Ortlieb, and Cynthia Leung in Journal of Adolescent and Adult Literacy, November/December 2016 (Vol. 60, #3, p. 265-274), available for purchase at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/jaal.557/abstract; the authors can be reached at sampsonm@stjohns.edu, ortliebe@stjohns.edu, and cleung@usfsp.edu.

(Please note: The summary above appeared in issue 663 of The Marshall Memo, a fabulous resource for busy educators)

Concerns about Act 46: ANESU School District Consolidation

           Article 1 on the November 8 Ballot proposes a radical change in the way we govern our schools. In the proposed governance structure, decisions about everything from budgets to staffing would be centralized – handled by the superintendent and a single 13-member unified district board.  Each town’s voters would elect board members with proportional representation on the board, based on town population (Starksboro 2 members, Lincoln 2 members, New Haven 2 members, Monkton 2 members, and Bristol 5 members). Our local town school boards would be eliminated.

            If I believed that consolidation would result in significant savings, and would result in substantive improvements in teaching and learning, I would be supporting it.  As a school board member, and a member of the ANESU Act 46 Study Committee, and based on 16 years of experience as the ANESU Associate Superintendent of Schools, I just haven't seen evidence that the benefits of merging outweigh the losses...and the negatives are huge, in my view: 

• Moving from 7 boards with 34 board members to one 13-member board will make it harder for citizens to remain engaged in our schools. They will have less access to the information about our schools, and the assistance with concerns, that board members provide.  The superintendent will have fewer opportunities to be accountable to our communities.   

• The proposed structure is likely to decrease, rather than increase transparency and accountability. A single, $25 million budget will not receive the scrutiny for costs and performance that taxpayers deserve. 

• Projected savings from merging school districts are minimal and short-lived. School district centralization will not lower property taxes in any significant way, for any significant length of time, and we pay for the tax rate incentives through an increase in our own taxes! In addition, the projected operational savings ($140,000) are minimal, and outweighed by the costs. 

• Hiring which teachers work with which kids, in which schools, is by far the most important decision that school leaders make. In becoming one unified district, we risk diminishing the principals’ and the superintendent’s authority in making those decisions. 

• We do have work to do to improve our schools, but we are making improvements, and we can make additional improvements, without radically changing our governance structure. Most of the benefits offered for school consolidation can be achieved within the school governance structure that we have, without eliminating local school boards and without centralizing control of our schools.

            There ARE other options and there IS time to make a different choice.  If one or more of our 5 towns votes 'no' on November 8, the proposal will be stopped, and our school boards will need to decide, together, what to do next. Our other options include:

• Sending a report to Montpelier that shows how the improvements we’re planning, and the improvements we’re already making, will enable us to meet the goals of Act 46 without radically changing the governance structure of our schools.

• Proposing an alternative form of governance in which schools retain an elected council/board that delegates many duties to a central board, but retains genuine responsibility for such key functions as developing the school budget and hiring the school principal.   

We CAN do better, we DO have time, and we DO have a choice in this matter. Please join me in voting ‘no’ on Article 1.  

For more information please visit these websites:

www.votenoact46.com

7 Problems with Act 46 

Silent Spring: Act 46 and Local Democracy

Silent Spring: Act 46 and Local Democracy

(This article first appeared in the November 3, 2016 issue of the Addison Independent)

Residents in Starksboro, Lincoln, New Haven, Monkton, and Bristol will be voting Nov. 8 on whether to consolidate school governance under Act 46. It’s a polarizing issue, at a time when we’ve seen enough polarization at the national level to last a lifetime. As coauthors, we come together from the left and right to urge you to vote no. We think these communities can do better, by stepping back to look at the big picture.

For a lesson in big-picture thinking, let’s take a quick visit to the environmental movement. In 1962, scientist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a groundbreaking exposé of the over-use of chemical pesticides. One of the first books to call Americans’ attention to environmental issues, Silent Spring revealed the link between pesticides and cancer.

Of course, pesticides like DDT were applied with good intentions—for instance, to kill mosquitoes that could carry disease. But Carson showed the grave links between pesticides, health problems, and significant bird die-offs, hence Silent Spring’s poignant title: A spring when no birds would sing.

The most important revelation of Silent Spring is that you can never do just one thing. In an interconnected system, all actions must be considered with humility, and within the context of the whole. Tinkering can have devastating unintended consequences.

In 2015, the Vermont legislature passed Act 46, an education law inspired by concerns about rising property taxes, declining enrollments, and a growing achievement gap among students. But with its incentives to erase town lines for school purposes, abolish local school boards, and effectively eliminate Town Meeting Day deliberation on school issues, Act 46 pushes for a massive overhaul not simply of education, but of what it means to live in a Vermont community.

Key points that have been missed in the consolidation discussion include the following:

1)    Size matters. Current district lines follow town lines, but erasing these and replacing them with regional districts means a dramatic increase in the size of the governed body. What we know from town meeting research is, the larger the town, the lower the per capita participation. Citizens understand that in a small body, their participation counts for much more than in a large one, and they feel more civic responsibility to support the common good.

2)    Power matters. The current proposal dramatically reduces the number of elected representatives per citizen. This means reduced ability to know, understand, and communicate with decision makers.

3)    Structure matters. It is well known that single-issue interest groups tend to dominate attendance at single-issue public meetings. But education needs the voice and wisdom of the full community. The structure must be designed to invite them in, not turn them away.

4)    Community matters. Vermont is the second most rural state in the U.S. And researchers consistently rank Vermont among the highest in “social capital”—the trust, neighborliness, and volunteerism that make our society, economy and democracy function. Social capital is not some magical ingredient in Vermont’s water; it is built by having one neighborly conversation, one thoughtful compromise, one difficult meeting at a time. Consolidation flies in the face of civic research showing that America’s social capital wastelands are suburbs, where too often there is not a strong community center, and governance happens at the regional level.

Like any natural system, this one works as a loop—education supports community, community supports education. Vermont’s schools may be the single most powerful setting to inspire citizen engagement. Schools are where we spend the majority of our locally collected tax dollars. And here, we entrust what is most precious to us—our children—to a larger system.

In turn, decades of research show that schools function best when the community is involved. The future of public education depends on communities full of people who are willing to pay for good education—with their time, their wisdom, and their dollars—even though their immediate interests are not at stake. For this, we need robust democratic engagement.

Let’s be clear: Rachel Carson was not pro-malaria, and consolidation opponents are not in favor of bad schools. Carson advocated for biological pest control—a sustainable middle ground. Likewise, we can find a middle ground in school governance reform.

In Act 46, legislators included alternatives to wholesale consolidation. Vermonters should hold them to their offer. After sending back a “no” vote, communities can collaborate to create a new proposal, for instance one that retains elected local boards with key local powers (such as developing budgets and hiring the principal), while also creating a combined board for issues better decided together. This can be a Jeffersonian moment to create something that’s truly better, not to meet a one-size-fits-all mandate.

What makes no sense is the wholesale eradication of effective, responsive local school boards and the erasure of the sense of place that makes our communities function. Vermonters’ experience with self-governance lifts our politics dramatically above the national. What sets us apart is our human-scale structure, and the intermingled voices of local wisdom.

What kind of world do we want our children to graduate into? And what kind of communities create that world? What will be the impact of a silent spring, with no voices heard on Town Meeting Day? These questions, too, are our responsibility.

Frank Bryan Professor Emeritus of Political Science at the University of Vermont and a Starksboro resident. Susan Clark is the co-author of "All Those In Favor" (with Frank Bryan) and "Slow Democracy" (with Woden Teachout).

Eliminating the Grading Game

Eliminating the Grading Game: Providing Equity through Proficiency Based Learning Practices

At the recent Rowland Conference, Andrew Jones and Gabriel Hamilton from Mount Abraham Union Middle/High School gave this compelling presentation about shifts in practice required to transition to a proficiency-based learning system with the goal of equity for all. 

This presentation Eliminating the Grading Game can be used to inform educators as well as community members about the rationale for Proficiency-Based Learning and how it differs from traditional systems. It can also be used to provoke meaningful conversations about inequities that currently exist in systems and strategies for addressing them.