Running head: HOW TEACHERS CAN INSPIRE STUDENTS

How Teachers Can Inspire Students to Become Writers

Laura Cardenas

University of North Texas

HOW TEACHERS CAN INSPIRE STUDENTS 2

How Teachers Can Inspire Students to Become Writers

Sticks and stones may break the bones, but leave the spirit whole. But simple words can

break the heart or silence crush the soul (Johnston, 2004). This is an excerpt from Herb

Warrens poem, Sticks and Stones May Break My Bones that Peter H. Johnston included in his

book Choice Words. Words have more power than we sometimes may think, and in this poem,

Warren is describing how much damage he believes words truly make. While words have the

power to hurt, they also have just as much power to inspire. As educators we must be fully aware

of this, because we have a voice and we have students who need us to use our voice to inspire

them. Johnston mentions in his book that according to Vygotsky, we know that children grow up

being influenced by the environment around them (Johnston, 2004). He then continues to add

that intellectual life is fundamentally social, and language has a special place in it (Johnston,

2004). Our students are influenced by the language we use in such a way that a teacher can

position students differently in relation to what they are doing, learning, or studying (Johnston,

2004). Similarly, as Johnston supports in his book, the words a teacher uses can influence the

way the students view themselves as writers. Teachers can inspire students and help them view

themselves as writers by their words, written feedback, and using appropriate writing strategies.

Identity

In Judy Chihaks article, Success is in the details: Publishing to validate elementary

authors, Chihak describes the school-based publishing program called Panther Paw Press and

how it helps the students see themselves as authors. The article focuses on seven goals that all

lead to the success of the child and a positive identity as an author. The first goal is to help the

children see themselves as authors and lists various ways to do that. They were able to succeed in

their first goal by using phrases like, Writers like you or Your writing reminds me of Cynthia
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Rylants or when bringing them together saying, Authors, can we meet? (Chihak, 1999). The

words that they chose to use with the students were strategic and had an end goal in mind. Other

goals include: providing an extended opportunity for publishing, support the districts

instructional goals, enhance reading/writing connection by providing original works, and finally

encouraging students to write as a way to understand their lives. Through the publishing goal the

students were able to find motivation and confidence in themselves.. According to Chihak, all six

goals were met and later shared with the books we have published, we have helped to validate

our students as authors (Chihak, 1999).

A year-long study was conducted by Demet Seban and Omer Faruk Tavsanli to view the

identity construction as readers and writers of a group of second graders. The study revealed that

the second graders conceptualized their identity under four categories, which included: purposes

of writing, assumptions about writing/writers, process of writing, and competence in writing. As

stated in the study, literacy is so much more than practicing skills and sharing knowledge...it

requires that people are involved in interaction, participation and relation in which peoples sense

of themselves and others is identified (Seban, 2015). Students need to be able to express

themselves in their writing, and teachers must create a safe environment for them to feel safe in

identifying themselves as a writer.

Teacher Feedback

The way a teacher gives feedback to a students writing can greatly influence how well

the student succeeds or does not succeed both emotionally and academically. A study was done

on EFL students in the Republic of Benin, in order to view the kind of feedback teachers were

giving, as well as the students impressions of that feedback. In this study one of the teachers

stated, I mostly focus on mistakes (Agbayahoun, 2016). The nature of her feedback showed
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negative feelings from mostly all students. They concluded that the type of feedback that

teacher provide should not only be informative, but it should also take into account learners

background knowledge, motivation, level of learning, and preferences (Agbayahoun, 2016).

Another study was administered over the course of a semester to determine whether

teacher feedback had any influence in the students revisions on their work (Dunsford, 2006).

The study viewed feedback written at the end of a paper, in the margins, and orally. As a result,

the students prefered oral comments on their work and there were more total revisions

associated with oral only comments than the other three types (Dunsford, 2016). The results of

the students also showed that they prefered direct and specific comments. These results support

how much teacher feedback can influence the students success

Teaching students how to correct and write their own feedback is another way to increase

their identity and confidence as a writer. The students will benefit from learning to set their own

goals, questions, monitor themselves, and evaluate their own work. According to Chapter 2 of

Tompkins book, Teaching Writing, capable writers use a variety of strategies and self-

regulate their strategy use (Tompkins, 2012). As educators, we must be strategic and use our

words to prepare our students to be independent writers.

Writing Strategies

Using appropriate writing strategies can help students develop a better sense of identity

as a writer as supported by Chapter 2 of Tompkins Teaching Writing. With the right strategies

a student can gain independence in their writing and in doing so, also gaining confidence in their

ability to write. As students learn to reflect on their learning, for example, they begin to reflect

on themselves as writers; and as they learn to monitor their learning, they develop the ability to

monitor their writing (Tompkins, 2012).

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A study was conducted in New Zealand on nine different writing teachers to view their

practices as effective writing instructors. One of the teachers whose results showed effective

practices showed gains by learning tasks and for direct instruction (Gadd, 2017). Another

instructor who resulted in having effective teaching practices showed gains through self-

regulation, which was nominated as a probable foreground dimension of effective practice in

that...it is the dimension that indicated the greatest difference in operational proficiency (Gadd,

2017). These three practices of learning tasks, direct instruction and self-regulation all resulted in

students gaining scores. These results support the claim of the positive effects of appropriate

teaching practices and how teaching students to use these practices will allow them to grow in

their writing and identity as a writer.

Conclusion

Teachers have the power to influence their students in so many ways. Giving students

feedback on their writing should also be done in such a way that our words are encouraging and

helping them grow as writers. Using writing strategies and teaching the students how to become

independent writers is another way to help them view themselves as writers and be confident in

that. The way teachers refer to their students can make a great impact on their identity as a

writers, so teachers must keep in mind the kind of language that is being used to describe their

students. The words that they choose should be carefully and strategically used to inspire the

students to see and identify themselves as writers.

References

Agbayahoun, J. P. (2016). Teacher written feedback on student writing: Teachers' and learners'
perspectives. Theory and Practice in Language Studies, 6(10), 1895-1904.
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Chihak, J. (1999). Success is in the details: Publishing to validate elementary authors. Language
Arts, 76(6), 491-498.

Dunsford, D. W. (2006). Feedback follow up: The influence of teacher comment on student
writing assignments. NACTA Journal, 50(2), 12-18.

Gadd, M., & Parr, J. M. (2017). Practices of effective writing teachers. Reading and Writing,
30(7), 1551-1574.

Johnston, P. H. (2004). Choice Words: How Our Language Affects Childrens Learning.
Portland, Maine: Stenhouse.

Seban, D., & Tavsanli, . F. (2015). Children's sense of being a writer: identity construction in
second grade writers workshop. International Electronic Journal of Elementary
Education, 7(2), 217.

Tompkins, G. E. (2012). Chapter 2. In Teaching writing: balancing process and product (6th ed.).
Boston: Pearson.

Tompkins, G. E. (2012). Chapter 5. In Teaching writing: balancing process and product (6th ed.).

Boston: Pearson.