WRITING GENRES

Our writing classes, supplemental to the humanities and English classes, are a vital part of our literacy initiative. First-year students take humanities, science, math, and writing. This first-year writing course, Writing Genres, has four segments during which students read, study, and experiment with different writing genres. The first segment of the course focuses on fiction/memoir, nonfiction/journalism, and debate. The second introduces students to the research process and guides them through a three month long reflective and independent research project.

At the beginning of the ninth-grade Writing Genres course, teachers issue a diagnostic test to identify students’ strengths and weaknesses in writing at the sentence and paragraph level. Teachers then create individualized plans to bring low-achieving students up to speed, using technology when possible to allow students to build skills at their own pace. With this intensive literacy initiative, we intend to ensure that all ninth-grade students learn to construct a clear and grammatical sentence and to simultaneously inspire a real enthusiasm for the written word.

We have incorporated into all of our writing courses Elana Bell (poetry) and Will Georgantas (journalism), the school’s writers in residence, who receive a stipend and conduct three intensive workshops per week that bring together students from all four grade levels. This brings new dimension to the writing courses, helps the students see that there are a number of different and exciting ways to approach writing, and generates well-honed material for our school literary magazine and newspaper.

This four-year series of writing courses and, more generally, the emphasis on literacy will enhance our students’ level of success in every discipline and set them on the path of academic and professional success by making them confident readers and writers. Students will not only be asked to use writing to express themselves and explore aspects of their own lives and neighborhoods, but they will also learn the basics of narrative writing: description, dialogue, voice, tone, plot, reflection, and pacing. The journalism and nonfiction component will enlarge students’ perspectives and solidify their research skills by expanding to cover city politics and policies that affect young people and their neighborhoods. In addition to completing short assignments, students are engaging in an ongoing and rigorous process of revision with the intent of producing at least one high-quality, publishable piece per year for the school newspaper or literary magazine.

We bolster all of these writing courses and, more generally, these writing initiatives by infusing computer technology into classroom instruction and by providing students with opportunities to hear from and meet with visiting writers, poets, and lyricists at the weekly Writers’ Forum; to engage in poetry slams; and to see theater productions.