Wrestling with Writing & Other Thoughts

“Freedom risks its own abuse, thinking risks error, speech risks misunderstanding, faith risks failure, and hope risks despair. The risk of life is death, and man is man only by virtue of his risks of the future.” Madeleine L’Engle

Why are kids today so afraid of putting their own thoughts down on a page? Maybe because for generation upon generation they have fought against educators who have told them they are stupid or that their opinions don’t matter. Sure, in formal writing, many students don’t have the expertise to write with authority, but why are they scared to even attempt an interpretation of another’s words? Have we really put our young readers and writers in a position where they feel like anything they have to say will be easily dismissed by those who “know better”? It’s a sad thought I’m wrestling with this week.

I find that the best books I’ve read, the best T.V. shows I’ve watched, the best movies I’ve seen, the ones I want to read or watch over and over again, are the ones that pose questions without concrete answers. When I can read Dumbledore’s final revelations to Harry at other-world King’s Cross in Deathly Hallows four times and still be just grasping at the edges going “Huh?” in the end, that’s a good piece of writing. When I can watch a season finale of Doctor Who and, again, feel like I’m trying to keep sand from running through my fingers to reach an explanation, that’s genius on the part of the scriptwriters. Epically confusing movies are harder to come by, but I suppose this line of reasoning could apply to why everyone raves about Inception. I think as rational, thinking beings, we don’t always want to have things explained to us, or neatly tied up with a bow at the end. Maybe that’s why I’m not a big fan of Jane Austen. I want to read the book that I could imagine writing another chapter for. What if the Monster didn’t really die at the end of Frankenstein?

It might appear I just went off on a bit of a rabbit trail from where I started, but hold on a minute. There’s something to be said for encouraging young writers to explore thoughts that may or may not be correct. Sometimes there really isn’t a nice, neat, “right” answer. More often than not the blanks on my students’ homework questions are for the “What did you think…” questions. Literature, good literature, is open to interpretation. The beauty of a well-written book is that we can still wrestle with it 10, or 100, or 2800 years later. Madeleine L’Engle wrote Wrinkle in Time while she was struggling with some weighty theological and scientific concerns, looking for an explanation to how the world works. C.S. Lewis wrote A Grief Observed while grappling with his grief over the loss of his wife. J.K. Rowling wrote portions of the Harry Potter series while coming to terms with her mother’s death and her own beliefs about an afterlife. I write best when I’m looking for answers, shouldn’t our students learn this is okay too?

Several years ago I had a student who would come over to my house for help with papers. It was like pulling teeth the first few sessions. I sounded like a broken record asking her the “Why?” questions. She was afraid to offer her own voice.

“I’m supposed to respond to this book I read.”

“Okay, what did you think?”

“I hated it.”

“Okay, go with that.”

“I can’t tell the teacher I hated it.”

“Why not? As long as you can explain what you hated about it.”

“Really?”

“Yes, now why did you hate it?”

“I didn’t like the author’s tone.”

“Why? What didn’t you like about it?”

And so on from there. It’s completely acceptable to have a response in writing that goes against the norm. We need to teach kids to be confident in their own voices in all situations. A young person can respectfully disagree with their elders, and even the “experts.” They just have to learn how, and we need to teach them. The world is only getting darker, and if they can’t learn to take a different angle, even if it feels uncomfortable, they will not succeed out there. We need to let them question even the “well-established” facts. Was Alexander really great? What did you think about how that war turned out? Was Iago truly evil, or was he just a misunderstood product of his environment? Does DNA evidence preclude double jeopardy? And those are just a few of the topics being bandied in my classes lately.

I love to teach writing. I love to see the light bulbs go off in their heads. I love when the above dialogued student calls me asking if she can come over just so I can ask her the “Why?” questions. I love that my son asks me weird questions all the time. Now I just need to remember that while thinking may risk error, and speech may risk misunderstanding, the risk is worth the reward.