We at #USvsHate condemn with rage the massacre of human beings in Buffalo by an openly white supremacist teen. We grieve the losses of Roberta A. Drury, Margus D. Morrison, Andre Mackniel, Aaron Salter, Geraldine Talley, Celestine Chaney, Heyward Patterson, Katherine Massey, Pearl Young, and Ruth Whitfield, and injuries to Zaire Goodman, Jennifer Warrington, and Christopher Braden. We extend our most heartfelt condolences to the loved ones of each and every one of these individuals. We also want to recognize, share in, and bear witness to the grief, pain, and fear that is being experienced in Black communities and communities of color across the country targeted by racist violence.

We redouble our commitment to working daily to support youth and teachers to refuse white supremacy in all its forms.

We pause, and describe our commitments below this line.

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This massacre was fueled by white supremacy, a philosophy that is centuries old and core to racism itself. Refusing white supremacy takes ongoing work from all of us. In the image below, designed for K12 environments, we together refuse this core ideology. We refuse and reject any situation that treats people of color as less worthy than white people. We refuse and reject racist harm, harassment, and racially unequal opportunity in education. And we continue to work every day to support young people to recognize and undo everyday versions of white supremacy and other common forms of injustice, bias, discrimination, and unequal opportunity that hurt Black people, other people of color, and all of us.

In the wake of this heinous massacre, we also condemn politicians who have been stoking hatred and misinformation while attempting to restrict children and youth‘s ability to learn about issues of race, racism and diversity in schools. Hateful theories about people of color dangerously “replacing” whites in communities and the electorate drove the white supremacist murderer. These theories have been repeated not only in the Charlottesville Unite the Right white supremacist demonstration and online, but on Fox News and by politicians themselves.

And simultaneously — and similarly unacceptably — since January 2021, politicians have filed over 180 bills in 40 states to restrict students’ right to learn in school about issues of race, racism and diversity. Since July 2021, politicians and parents inflamed by them have tried to ban 1,500 individual books on race and diversity — often books about racism, with protagonists of color, or with LGBTQ characters — from libraries or classrooms serving children across 26 states.

This is unacceptable. Politicians and even parents should not try to limit youths’ rights to learn in school about their country and one another. This effort to restrict learning is especially outrageous while youth are learning hate from politicians and media figures themselves.

Instead, all people of conscience must persist in antiracist education in K12 schools. We need accurate and inclusive K12 education if we are to grow a nation of young people who can take care of one another — and lead a future country that works for everybody.

Youth learn to be antiracist through learning history and analyzing current events; through direct discussion and unity activities; through reading literature offering diverse experiences; and through authentic relationships in schools where everyone is treated like they belong. Youth also learn through raising their own voices to articulate their own experiences with and viewpoints against hate, bias, racism, and injustice. Book bans and educational gag orders chilling discussion of racism and erasing diverse viewpoints and accurate history fundamentally restrict students’ right to learn to take our nation forward — forward into a future without racist violence and harm.

Young people can handle conversations about racism that arise from accurate history teaching, from authentic friendship and dialogue, and from exploration of the world’s great literature. And to disrupt the cycle of hate-born violence, they must learn. We all must learn.

We say in shared grief and resolve,

#LetUSlearn

#LetThemLearn

#USvsHate.

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We invite critique of/input on this message, which we are trying to shape for everyday school walls. Contact us at micapollock@ucsd.edu.

We also share in closing this message by a fifth grader, who submitted to #USvsHate anonymously. Other antiracist messages can be found on usvshate.org. All can be downloaded for classrooms.

#LetUSlearn: We Insist on Antiracist Education was originally published in NWP Write Now on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Co-Authored by Lisa Bratus, Maria Kathleen Conover, Antonio Maurice Daniels, Kristen Alkire Eshleman, Stefanie Effie Hios, LaConya S. Hutchison, Lydia Madeline Kenney, Amanda Joy Kling Dickson, Brandy M. Lewin, Amy Jolene Nelson, Kristan Olfers, and Eden Elizabeth Younkin.

What happens when a group of writing teachers take the plunge into digital media and networked technology? This blog, and its related Padlet resource, were designed to share a bit of this story and the work we did together in a course called Digital Writing and Multimodal Composing as part of the Teaching Writing MA program at Johns Hopkins University during the Spring of 2022.

Edit me: DWMC Title TBD

After diving in and using The Make Cycle to guide our way, we sometimes enjoyed a blissful swim and other times struggled for strength and air to keep our heads above water. Yet, we supported each other to stay afloat, and all learned more about ourselves as writers while we reflected on the implications of teaching writing. We explored ways in which writing is an act of making, how to consider culturally sustainable ways of composing and designing for composition in our classrooms, and how to support writers to grow through assessment that truly considers the multiple ways we all make meaning in today’s digitally networked and media-rich world.

How is digital writing and multimodal composition worthwhile in the classroom? Here are some responses to this question that we gathered to share:

Brandy Lewin is a middle grades composition teacher.

Through the eyes of a writer, a learner, and a teacher, I grew to understand the complex role of digital writing and multimodal composing in our lives. I understand the need to empower students to make compositions using tools that can amplify and ILLUMINATE their message on any topic from the past to the future.

Learning about the scope and complexities of digital writing and multimodal composing through the make cycle is a true write-to-learn experience. Deeply exploring a topic using a variety of digital tools allows the writer to explore rhetoric, audience, and purpose in different ways–some of which may not be considered by using a text-only format. Through the process of digital composing, the writer engages in their topic by considering how their audience would read/consume the piece.

Creating and presenting a maker’s log is a strategy that helps to focus on the reflective process of each make. All the while, it gives space for learning from and with each other. This builds a true writing community.

Lisa Bratus is a Literacy Intervention Teacher Grades K-4.

About 10 years ago I remember listening to a principal talk about the Space Shuttle Challenger. It immediately captured my curiosity as I remember being in 6th grade when we received the news and actually watched the Space Shuttle Challenger, with the first teacher to enter space, explode. In the principal’s story, he spoke about the location where the parts of the Challenger were made and the tunnels they had to pass through by train to be transported to their destination. Although there were advancements in some elements of air space engineering, this one particularly large part of the Challenger was still transported by train through tunnels that could only accommodate a certain width. NASA continued to do things the way they have always done them even as advancements in technology were made. And we all know the tragic end the Space Shuttle Challenger and its crew faced. The point of this principal’s story was that even rocket science is impacted when we continue to do things the way we’ve always done them. What tragedies could have been avoided? What discoveries could have been made?

If we look at our education system, the advancements that surround the walls of our schools are immense, and yet, we continue to see writing the way we’ve always done it. The 5-paragraph pencil to paper essay or typed essay beyond 3rd grade. The biggest technology advancement for these paragraphs is spell-check. Of course, that’s only when we are not told to disable it for scoring purposes. Yet all around our students, in their worlds outside of the classroom, they are bombarded and inspired by technology with ways to see things outside of the monotonous blue lines of loose leaf paper. How can we integrate the two, writing and technology? What tragedies can be avoided? What discoveries can be made?

I feel fortunate to have gone through this class. I have to admit when I signed up I didn’t know how to define what I would be learning. Yes, I had to Google it. I learned and I struggled. I learned some more and struggled some more. Sometimes I felt like it was rocket science but I kept exploring this new world of digital writing and multimodal composition. I invited my students to take the journey with me. What tragedies were avoided? What discoveries were made?

Our writing studio was born and I saw my struggling writers become motivated to make writing. I saw my struggling writers choose writing class instead of Fun Friday activities in their classroom. I saw students invested in using technology, maps, comics, giant paper, markers, and words. They were invested in this new discovery of digital composing and multimodal writing. Their curiosity was captured and they WANTED to make writing. They were no longer looking into the window of a loose leaf paper 5-paragraph essay world where they didn’t quite seem to fit. What tragedies were avoided! What discoveries were made!

Maria Conover is a 3rd grade teacher.

If you ask educators something they wish they had more of, I would venture to say most would respond with time. There never seems to be enough hours in the day to accomplish the long list of requirements placed on teachers. As the NCTE asserts, as technology and society evolve so must education. So why is it that digital writing and multimodal composition is not commonplace in all classrooms? Just like students need to understand the value of what they are learning, teachers must learn how devoting time to understanding a “new” initiative warrants their time and effort. New is a relative term because while digital composition isn’t a new concept, it is new to many educators and if we think about the evolution of technology, we can consider this a new concept on a daily basis. As educators ponder this question about whether digital writing and multimodal composition is worth the time in the classroom; worth expanding some of their most valuable resources, I would personally answer with a resounding yes.

Digital writing and multimodal composing:

• Creates a more inclusive writing classroom where even struggling writers can find an avenue to success;
• Prepares students for the digital world they will enter when they leave school;
• Appeals to male students who often struggle with the confining structure of traditional writing;
• Allows students to think in a more open ended and creative way where there truly isn’t one right way to approach a topic;
• Helps students love writing again.

As an educator, I am understanding now more than ever that multimodal composing will not be just another thing we have to fit in, but rather a way to meet the same standards in new and innovative ways. We have an opportunity to make teaching and learning fun, embracing the evolution of technology and using it to enhance student learning and access to more authentic audiences.

Amanda Dickson is a 4th Grade Writing Teacher.

Digital writing and multimodal composing seem essential in today’s writing classroom. With savvy students who are well versed in a plethora of tech tools and are pros at navigating social media platforms, we as teachers do a disservice to our writers when we restrict them to more traditional styles and modes of creation and composition.

Most teachers of writing are looking to engage their students beyond the ‘old school’ ways of assigning an essay topic and asking for a finished piece later that week. Teachers and educators are stepping their toes into the digital world and rethinking what it means to be a writer as we open up doors for our students to explore podcast creation, spoken word poetry, comics and zines, Canva, Instagram, Animoto, and the whole host of digital tools and social media platforms that come with this generation of learners.

And, let me tell you, our students are thriving because of this. Their thinking and creativity are on display as they use tools we are only just learning in ways that, simply put, blow our minds. They tinker and play and manipulate pictures and language as they compose and write in modes and genres that we would never have considered in a traditional classroom. I’ve seen this in my own students as I’ve modeled my thinking and writing using alternative modes or tech tools. They are on fire about exploring what it means to write and the content of pieces they are producing is beyond anything I’ve seen.

The use of digital writing and multimodal composing has put me in a new place in my classroom as I learn alongside my students. I love that I understand their struggles on a much deeper level and am able to support them in new ways since I am also a student of this type of writing. My words and advice carry more weight in this role and it has greatly enhanced my conference time with my students. My writers seem more fearless as well, now that their view of writing and writers has expanded well beyond what they previously experienced, and they’re only ten! I’ve also seen a dramatic increase in the amount that my students are producing, not to mention they are finding inspiration and mentors right in the four walls of my classroom when they view each other’s work and ask, “How did you do that?! Can I try?” My dream of being a facilitator in my classroom with my students taking on the role as experts and true Writers (with a capital W) is being lived out every day and I am just thrilled.

As a teacher who holds a special place in my heart for writers labeled as struggling, digital writing and multimodal composing has rocked their world. Students who speak English as their second language are thriving in a classroom where other modes of writing are deemed acceptable and seen as equally relevant. These students have loved using tools like Canva and Animoto which rely on sound, pictures, and words together to create meaning. Meanwhile, my boy writers spend their days creating comic clubs where they take turns authoring what I’ve termed ‘Comic Zines’ that they then illustrate, copy and distribute to their followers. The rest of the time, I find them dividing up duties on a Google Doc they share as they create job charts for the co-authored pieces they’re writing.

I could go on and on about the shifts that have taken place in my classroom due to the introduction of digital writing and multimodal composing over the past several months, but words in a digital/multimodal class only carry part of the weight. There are mountains of student work that speak for itself and really exemplify the quality, energy, passion, and life that can be had when students and teachers take a chance on digital writing and multimodal composing in their own classrooms. There is no better way to experience the worthiness of this type of writing than to simply try it for yourself.

Amy J Nelson is a former high school English teacher who is currently a writer and editorial manager at an EdTech company.

Although “digital writing and multimodal composition” sounds quite advanced for the everyday classroom, it is feasible to include this type of learning and making in the curriculum.

When I was teaching high school English, I often felt overwhelmed by all of the tools available to me. So overwhelmed, in fact, that I tended to resort back to what I knew from my own experience as a student — poster boards, PowerPoint presentations, and the occasional trip to the coveted computer lab. This is one of the many reasons why I enrolled in this course; I was seeking tools to teach writing effectively. Throughout this semester, I have learned that digital writing is so much more than just using a computer to type up an essay or add photos to a slide deck. Digital writing combines literacy skills with 21st-century skills and gives students the opportunities to find their voice.

As language evolves and changes over time, so too does writing. With the boom of technology in this online age, students must learn how to navigate digital literacy. We interact with writing via the comments and videos we post on social media, the carefully chosen emojis we send to convey our mood, the emails we write to colleagues, and the reviews we leave for businesses. Digital writing is all around us.

So, why is it so important to include digital writing and multimodal composition in the classroom? When students are placed in the role of a maker, it opens up a world of collaboration, creativity, connection, and critical thinking. It is no secret that students learn when they are engaged and interested in the task at hand. With digital writing, students are blogging, creating videos, making zines, researching about their community, and so much more. Because there are so many ways to be digitally literate, teachers can foster students as “experts” in the class to help with different projects. Some students are better with visuals, some are more skilled with technical issues, and others find their expertise in seeing the bigger picture. What’s important is that the classroom is a place of risk-taking, of curiosity and wonder, of inclusion and exploration.

Digital writing and multimodal composition enhance student learning. The resources and mentor compositions in this curated Padlet are designed to support classroom teachers. Let’s utilize these tools to help the next generation be active and contributing members of our communities.

Kristan Olfers is a children’s book author and community volunteer.

Technology is exciting and will continue to move forward, ever-changing, always connecting individuals, cultures, locations, history, events, and the list goes on.

Interestingly, created and named the World Wide Web in 1989, “the Web, is the world’s dominant software platform. It is an information space where documents and other web resources can be accessed through the Internet using a web browser. The Web has changed people’s lives immeasurably. It is the primary tool billions of people worldwide use to interact on the Internet.” according to Wikipedia, our free encyclopedia.

Digital writing in a multimodal “make” is a technique to create this web of information. The writer can begin with their core piece and then take their reader outward in multiple routes of learning and connecting, zigging and zagging, while returning and guiding.

By encouraging students to think and explore writing through these avenues, they are taught tools such as organizing, researching, connecting, and designing. They explore the world by virtual travel, both the globe and through time — the past, present, and future.

Through collaborative sharing, teachers inspire lessons and ideas that benefit their classes and the classrooms of their fellow community. After all, the intent of this digital world is connectivity and best noted in the original logo as follows:

Reaching and teaching, literally meeting the students in their “spaces,” will lend to credibility, relatability, excitability, productivity, and teachability while providing inspiration, modes, methods, and connections.

Writing is essential and will continue to move forward, ever-changing, constantly pushing, inspiring, and encouraging, while opening minds to new adventures, places, challenges, explorations, and perspectives.

Eden Younkin is a 7th grade English Language Arts teacher.

Today’s students live in a digital age where much of their conversation and learning is done online. In order to provide meaningful, rigorous education to our students, teachers need to integrate digital writing and multimodal composition into their classrooms. Although there may be some resistance or hesitation, as long as the digital tools are used purposefully, a rich learning experience can be created through the use of technology.

The term “digital writing” is much broader and encompasses many forms other than the traditional essay, especially with the increasing amount of online teaching tools available today. Now, students can use websites like Weebly, Medium, and Twitter to create class blogs. Additionally, tools like Padlet and Google Suite applications allow students to create collaborative products. Finally, tools such as Canva, Screencastify, and many others enable students to create products that can be shared with authentic audiences.

In each of the tools listed above, teachers can encourage students to take a more active role as learners, writers, collaborators, and creators. Through the use of digital writing over different mediums, students will also become more proficient in navigating this online-dependent society.

As digital literacy becomes a skill required for most careers, teachers need to begin incorporating lessons that allow students to learn and apply these needed skills. While it might seem overwhelming, starting small and using online teacher resources such as this blog and linked Padlet are a great place to start. Additionally, playing around with all of the multimodal tools the Internet has to offer is a great way to see which ones best suit your teaching style. The best way to learn is by doing, so don’t be afraid to take risks and experiment with digital and multimodal writing.

LaConya Hutchison is a 4th grade English Language Arts teacher.

New technologies have been altering writing for years. These new technologies change the way students process information, receive instruction, and execute what they learn. Reaching students in the 21st-century classroom requires more creativity each day. After years of teaching what I considered to be successful writing, to my surprise, teaching writing post-pandemic in the in-person classroom, after two years of digital learning, changed drastically. I found that not only did my students find it more difficult to grasp writing traditionally, but they just did not want to write, at least not the way that I wanted them to write. My writing block needed a complete makeover. Using lessons from Digital Writing and Multimodal Composition, I began to instruct my students using multimodal means. Together our classroom community agreed to write what we knew and loved and commit to learning as a process. That is when my writing instruction took a turn for the better. Digital writing and multimodal composition are worth the while in the classroom.

When students create digital writing and multimodal compositions student learning is driven forward. In my learning community, I have witnessed students move from being reluctant writers to writers that are eager to share their finished products. This is one of the biggest reasons that I believe that digital writing is worthwhile in the classroom. It allows students to be creative. Students create and make sustainable work that they can learn from and use to teach others. Sometimes in our digitally enhanced writing environment, the writing block is noisy with students buzzing with excitement to share their latest thinking on a project they’ve created using digital and multimodal resources. Sometimes the writing community is completely silent as students are intently focused on composing. All the time, students are making something that they are proud of. They are proud and so am I. Learning is happening on their terms. Our learning, writing, and making are evolving daily. Often, I am amazed at what students are creating in the classroom. I teach fourth graders that can articulate what and how they are learning. I have seen the excitement in my classroom as students try different modes of media to create and then teach their peers. This makes digital writing and multimodal composition worth the while in the classroom.

Students who are not comfortable with pencil and paper writing can create digital writing assignments in less time and produce compelling content. Pencil and paper, while necessary, are not enough. Print and digital media, video production, and other assignments using multimodal and digital modes position students to experience multimodal reading, writing, and learning. Taking assignments away from just pencil and paper and using other modes of learning to allow students to create, open opportunities for exploration that gives students the necessary tools to drive their learning. All learners are different, when students can create and compose what is important to them, we all learn something. Writing in this manner becomes real for the individual student. That’s why I believe that digital writing and multimodal composition are worth the while in the classroom.

Finally, digital writing and multimodal composition are worth the while in the classroom because it prepares students for writing outside of the classroom. It prepares students to be successful in school and life. It allows students to think critically, preparing them to compete in a global society. Students are making connections in a real way and seeing writing as connected to the real world. Digital Writing and Multimodal Composition has reinforced what I learned many years ago, that to do is to learn. When students take more responsibility for the outcome of their learning, learning is solidified, and the student then becomes the teacher. I have found this to be true for my scholars. As they are learning, they are teaching. As they are sharing, they are gaining confidence. I enjoy exposing my students to this digital world as I am learning more. Utilizing digital writing and multimodal compositions have proved to be rewarding in my classroom.

Stefanie Hios is a 2nd Grade Inclusion Teacher.

Prior to this semester, my idea on what “digital writing and “multimodal composing” meant was frankly limited at best. I equated digital writing to any form of technology and multimodal, as well, I don’t really know what. I started with a beginner’s mindset and now I am walking away with a vast range of knowledge, tools, and resources that I can bring back to my own students within my second grade inclusion classroom. The ways in which students access and produce information in classroom settings are changing drastically and it is our job as educators to evolve with our practices to meet the needs of all our students. We need to shift our thinking of literacy instruction to one that is multimodal, interactive, and student driven. Digital writing and multimodal composing is worthwhile for me and I believe all teachers can benefit from framing their instruction in this way.

My eyes awoke quickly by understanding that writing is about how we communicate. And how we communicate is not simply through text or reading material, but also through different modes (visual, aural, linguistic, spatial, and gestural). This shift in thinking was powerful for me, especially as I work with a high population of students with learning disabilities. Our learners need material that is presented to them in a variety of modes, so why not allow students to compose, create, and collaborate in a way that is conducive to their own unique learning needs.

Multimodality gives us an opportunity to make our classwork relevant and engaging to both ourselves and for our students. Through multimodal composing, students are learning to become the most active participants in this process of creating. They are learning to take risks and experiment with different modes of expression. Through this trial and error process, students must formulate plans, goals, and make revisions. Students begin to develop academic, technical, and social skills as they create and communicate with their multimodal compositions. Students begin to become more independent with their thinking and more confident in making decisions. Through digital writing and multimodal composing, they find more ways in which they become inspired — they find new interests that are worth pursuing with the classroom and hopefully beyond. Through multimodal composing students become more aware of the audience — which often goes beyond the confines and restrictions of creating something just for the sake of the other students or teachers. Students become more aware and begin to understand that their creations and compositions can make a difference and impact on a much bigger scale.

Kristen Eshleman is an ESL Teacher, Teacher of Beginning Adult Writing groups, and School Theater Choreographer.

As a teacher of English as a Second Language, the adults I teach are extremely nervous about being in an English-speaking classroom. One student recently walked into my classroom, arms protectively crossed in front of her. I smiled at her welcomingly (I hoped), and said, “Hi!” She looked terrified, took a few steps backwards, held her hands in front of her and said, “No habla!” I continued to try to engage her in the simplest and friendliest manner, but she looked around her, hoping for escape and continued her mantra until I had mercy on her, smiled, and turned to someone else. My students, although they have been in the United States for years, and sometimes even decades, can speak very little English. Their children serve as their translators in most situations, and they traverse their new hometown terrified of encountering questions directed at them in English. I turned to digital compositions in an attempt to bridge the gap for these students, making English more approachable and less intimidating. In doing so, I have learned 3 very important things:

1. Pop Culture is a great instructor
2. Emojis are a universal language
3. Digital technology can help

We once spent an entire evening in our class trying to help students fill out a sample job application form. Every line was a challenge. At the end of the evening, we instructors burst into song when we found out that it was a student’s birthday. Every student joined us in song — in English. I was amazed. They know how to sing “Happy Birthday to You”? With time, I also learned that children new to the country can sing “Let it Go” from Disney’s Frozen, and young adults learn English from playing Call of Duty alongside English-speaking players. My students could look at emojis and call out “angry face!” or “happy face!” in English when we had not yet taught them any of those words. They exclaimed, “dog!” when I showed them pictures of my pet, and every student in my class eagerly showed me their TikTok account. So, I set about trying to use TikTok to teach English. I included popular music, written text, spoken words, graphics, and pictures of my dog in order to demonstrate the words “in front of” “behind” and others. It has received hundreds of views, including the comment “cute dog” from one of my students. You can view it here.

The next thing I attempted was to use the website, Buncee, in order to create an e-book for my students with an immersive reader. The immersive reader will allow students to translate each word into the language of their choosing, break each word down by syllable, help with English pronunciation, and define words with images and definitions. I have also created a presentation in Canva that allows me to demonstrate the meaning of various words through video, music, photos, text and graphic illustrations. I was able to upload this presentation into Buncee and couple it with the immersive reader for a double punch. I added as many emojis as I could. 😀 If interested, you can view it here.

My class has now ended, and I have not had a chance to test out my new materials on the next batch of students, but I am hopeful that I am onto something that will make a difference in our lessons together. I am on the lookout for cartoons, children’s books, memes, GIFs, and pop songs that my students and I can explore together, ideally with lessons recorded in an immersive reader. I have just learned that “No se habla de Bruno” (De “Encanto”) is #15 on YouTube Music’s global charts, so I can pretty much guarantee that “We Don’t Talk About Bruno” will be my next immersive composition. There are plenty of fun things a former choreographer can do with that!

I believe that using various modes of communication and digital composition will make my lessons more effective, more interesting, and less frightening. No more crossed arms and panicked looks . . . let’s hope.

Also find Kristen Eshleman at Instagram: penpalsstorycenter

Lydia Kenney is a 4th grade teacher.

The world around us is digital, multimodal, and full of multiliteracies; therefore, our teaching should include all of these as our job is to prepare students to thrive in the world we live in. Plus our brains function multimodally. We don’t just think in words. We utilize all of our senses, so shouldn’t our compositions tap into more than just written language. It is also helpful for students that may struggle with producing written language to share knowledge by producing in a combination of modalities: written, tactile, oral, visual, spatial, audio, gestural, and spatial.

Multimodal composing is more complex than traditional writing because students are using more than written language. By creating multimodal compositions that tap into these different modalities, you push your brain to think more critically as you tackle not only what to say but also how it should look, sound, and feel. I have seen this first hand in my own creations and with my students. When you not only have to think about the words, but how the words will combine with visuals and other modalities, your brain has to make more connections. Mary Kalantzis and Bill Cope call this synesthesia. Because of the complex nature of composing this way, it requires perseverance and a willingness to try lots of different tools and tricks to find the one that best fits a situation. So, not only will we be helping our students to grow connections through synesthesia, but will also help them to create a growth mindset that will help them in all areas of life.

Unlike when assigning an essay and kids know they hop on to a word processor and start typing in the same format that they always have, when doing more open ended multimodal compositions students have to determine what format, tools, modalities, etc. would be best to get their message out and for whom they want that message to go to. These multimodal compositions are often connected to real audiences and therefore give students a real purpose for their pieces which helps them to see how they will use these skills beyond school, whereas an essay is typically just written for the teacher and does not feel like a skill that will be used by many beyond the classroom.

In order to reach all of our students, prepare them to be critical thinkers, creators, and innovators in the world, and to be more inclusive in our teaching, we need to push for students to be able to do multimodal writing in the classroom.

Antonio Maurice Daniels is an Education Consultant, English Instructor, Research Associate, Grant Writer, Writing Laboratory Director, Writing Across the Curriculum Director, and Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Global Writers Unite, Inc.

Educators are increasingly serving more diverse student populations, but many do not employ instructional approaches that seem to acknowledge and commit to these populations. As the world rapidly changes and new information and knowledge grow exponentially, too many teachers are averse to exploring novel approaches to teaching and learning, which is detrimental to student growth and academic achievement. Working twenty-two years as an English instructor (at the middle and high school and university levels), twenty-two years as a professional writer, eleven years as a writing laboratory director, and four years as a writing across the curriculum director, I have observed many English teachers who fail to update their approaches to teaching and learning. The days of requiring students to compose using just pen or pencil, notebook paper, and/or Microsoft Word should have long concluded. Although most English teachers emphasize the notion of writing as a process, many neglect how students do most of their writing in digital and multimodal ways. Instead of abandoning digital writing and multimodal composition, English teachers not applying both in their instruction must recognize many of their students’ writing will not improve until they incorporate digital writing and multimodal composition in strategic and substantive ways.

Even for those who assert digital writing and multimodal composition do not constitute formal academic writing, they cannot deny a considerable percentage of their students often use digital and social media platforms to compose texts. These platforms are authentic parts of these students’ writing process. To disregard these platforms is to deliver writing instruction that is not student-centered and not compatible with the writing practices and processes of 21st-century students. In Make Writing: 5 Teaching Strategies That Turn Writer’s Workshop Into a Maker Space, Angela Stockman (2016) posited that “Many writers need to move, and they need their writing to move as well. They need to write while out of their seats and on their feet, spreading their ideas across whiteboards and tables, lifting pieces up with their hands, cutting them apart, randomizing them, and taking them into new and completely unpredictable forms. These writers need access to diverse tools and resources — far more than paper, laptops, and iPads” (p. 12). To create digital and multimodal pieces, students will need a device like a laptop, iPad, and/or smartphone, but, as Stockman delineates, they will “need access to diverse tools and resources.” Many of these “diverse tools and resources” can be accessed online and with smartphones. Student writers need teachers willing to explore these tools and resources and offer instruction about them; effective pedagogy does not simply leave students to discover everything about them independently.

Incorporating digital writing and multimodal composition into one’s instruction does not necessitate ditching the required Common Core State Standards (CCSS). One can and should, for example, continue to teach narrative, informational/explanatory, and argumentative writing. Imagine giving students some opportunities to include multifarious aural, gestural, spatial, and visual elements to accompany traditional linguistic elements in their compositions. A teacher can mandate students to use alphabetic text in their compositions — even specify a certain percentage of the text having to be comprised of alphabetic text. When permitting students to produce pieces in digital and multimodal ways, I often tell them at least half of the piece must contain alphabetic text. Most English teachers like to expose students to literary analysis essay assignments. Let students draft traditional literary analysis essays and grant them opportunities to produce digital and multimodal ones. Students understand literary analysis essays on deeper and distinct levels when composing them in multimodal ways. To borrow from Angela Stockman (2016), they are “making writing” when developing these works in multimodal ways. Stockman explained, “Making writing challenges individuals to identify and use the materials and processes they need to meet goals and learning targets. Making writing obliges teachers to access the voices of those we serve and listen hard. To teach effectively, we must pay attention to how individuals write and respond to what we observe rather than allowing our previous passions, expertise, and assumptions to drive instruction” (p. 13).

Employing Stockman’s (2016) idea of “making writing” to drafting literary analysis works in multimodal ways helps students to “use materials and processes they need to meet goals and learning targets.” The multimodality of such assignments challenges students to think about their ideas and the texts they respond to in far more diverse ways than simply using alphabetic text does. Also, teachers gain opportunities to assist students in recognizing how the making process coheres with their writing process. When students perceive themselves not just as writers but also as makers, I have discovered they tend to elaborate more and become more passionate about their work. When these students “make” their literary analysis pieces, this presents natural opportunities to discuss with their peers and teachers their processes for developing these pieces.

Student writers deserve their writing, making, and thinking to be challenged in the ways digital writing and multimodal composition afford. When students create in digital and multimodal ways, they do not simply confront linguistic challenges; they also face aural, visual, spatial, and gestural challenges. Such challenges, therefore, offer richer and more rigorous writing experiences. Also, student writers possess more ways to express and generate information and knowledge than engendering texts employing only alphabetic text. English teachers should search for more ways to expand the possibilities to communicate as digital writing and multimodal composition offer — not contemplate how to foreclose on expression.

Also find Antonio Maurice Daniels at Twitter: @gowriteunite; Instagram: globalwritersunite; Email: adanie48@jh.edu

Reference

Stockman, A. (2016). Make writing: 5 teaching strategies that turn writer’s workshop into a maker space. Times 10 Publications.

Digital Writing and Multimodal Composition Expand Possibilities for Writers of All Ages was originally published in NWP Write Now on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Several of us at the National Writing Project had been working with educators in Ukraine around an international learning exchange focused on teachingthe essay within the values of liberal democracy. We would have started a formal online course together on February 24 — the day the Russian invasion began.

We hear intermittently from our colleagues (who have more important things to worry about than writing to us), and in one recent message learned that one of our colleagues, Olga Bryukhovestska, had published an essay in L’Internationale Online. We include a brief selection below to entice you to read the whole thing.

Follow the link to read the full essay.

______________________________________

A selection from Olga Bryukhovetska, “Time and Again” at L’Internationale”

It is a new and unwanted experience to hear bombs exploding on the outskirts of Kyiv at 5 o’clock in the morning of 24 February 2022 — and then to hear more explosions, time and again.

‘It is exactly the same time, again.’ This phrase is repeated by Kyivians in make-do bomb shelters as the memory of the first Nazi bombing of the outskirts of Kyiv on 22 June 1941 resurfaces in the shared time of these newly formed underground communities. I gradually get used to the nauseating sound of the siren announcing an imminent airstrike, over and over again.

One week into the war, when drinking water becomes a scarcity in the city, it is again a new and unwanted, but this time accepted, experience to evacuate from Kyiv. I am leaving behind my home, my books, my writing table, without knowing if I will ever be able to return to this space where I have lived my life. It is another newly shared experience to escape with the bare necessities and become an internally displaced person.

As I write these words, one month into the war, I seem to have regained the ability to express this experience, to share it with the world. It was too unbearable before. It has been a month of feeling a bleeding pain in the face of aggression against the country to which I belong. It has been a month of an acute awareness that we are being killed simply because we exist, or, to be more precise, because we ‘do not really exist’ in someone else’s illusory world, in which we are perceived as an irritating obstacle to their ‘Grand Cause’. It has been one month of facing the unbearable lightness of being. The famous title of Milan Kundera’s novel finally makes sense as a reference for the real-time unfolding of damaged life. Time and again.”

Read the whole thing at L’Internationale: https://www.internationaleonline.org/opinions/1091_time_and_again/

Time and Again was originally published in NWP Write Now on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

by Tom Fox, National Writing Project

Imagine my surprise at being halfway around the world to visit my son and getting a message in the Write Now Teacher Studio from Jeff Gibbs, introducing himself as Director of the Hisar Writing Center, having heard I was in town. “Town” is the immense, complicated, and enthralling city of Istanbul, a “town” of 17 million or more.

Jeff and I made a date, and we joined up at his school.

Though the security outside the school was definitely tighter than American schools, once inside, I felt at home. Jeff’s writing center, as you can see from the photo above, is a beautiful space, well-lighted and adorned with student art. I asked Jeff to tell me the story of the center. He began at Hisar School as an English teacher. A writer himself, he knew from his own practice the value and power that writing can have. When his administrator asked if anyone was interested in starting a writing center, Jeff and colleague and co-founder Stephen Freer said yes. Jeff and Stephen formed a team with Ned Entrikin and Banu Aldemir as essential collaborators and took on the challenge. The challenge became even more challenging as Jeff launched the center through earthquakes and the world-wide pandemic!

Jeff had found the National Writing Project and the Secondary School Writing Center Association through his early research on writing centers. He was clearly familiar with some of the standard challenges of writing centers: ongoing training for writing consultants, resisting remedial definitions of centers, and garnering solid support from administrators and faculty. We had much to talk about.

On the day I visited Jeff’s center, writing consultants were given unmarked drafts of papers from a class that was studying climate change. Jeff had consulted with the instructor beforehand. Each writing consultant (there are 40 total) was given a different paper. All the papers were from the same instructor who sought out the center to help with this writing assignment. The writing consultants had approximately 20–30 minutes to read and prepare a session with the student authors. At this time, Jeff reminded students of the basic principles of the Hisar Writing Center:

When the students came in, they sat with the consultant who had read their paper. The sessions were focused, helpful, and efficient. The writing consultants were thoroughly prepared and ready to work and the students were eager to talk about their writing. The center began to buzz with the beautiful noise of students talking all at once.

This method answers almost all the challenges listed above. Writing consultants had the time and the support to prepare focused questions and comments. All students were served, not just students who struggle with writing. Writing consultants benefitted from the time and support during the first part of the hour. Plus, this method has the bonus of making positive connections with instructors by knowing in advance what the writing goals of the assignment are and supporting students in reaching those goals.

For me, however, the most exciting part of the Hisar Writing Center’s work is the yearly publications of student writing and art. These books are beautifully edited and published. They caught the attention of the school’s administrators and publicized the skills of Hisar’s students. What do students write about in Istanbul? In the first published book, Origin Stories, students write about the history of Turkish language policy, including a critique of the 1928 “Citizens, Speak Turkish” campaign. Another student writes about the unsavory history of bridal bouquets, showing that the Church’s wariness of bathing had resulted in “potent body odor,” which the bouquets were meant to mask. Many of the students at Hisar have fascinating lives, which makes the personal essay section gripping. One student discovers that her uncle was deeply involved in the Vietnam war as a spy. Many tell the story of being multicultural in a nationalist country — Mongolian, Iraqi, Kurdish, Jewish, Armenian, Greek. Students did not shy away from critiques about prejudice or historical atrocities.

The second book, S.T.E.A.M. Punks, focuses on how science is learned through writing and art. I was amazed at the topics and the knowledge that Hisar students have. There were essays on the “Math of the Moonlight Sonata,” “The Historical Progression of Trigonometry.” One section is devoted to call to action letters about climate change that reference local issues and projects, climate change statistics and facts, and advocate for change.

One of my favorite essays, “The Double-Edged Sword of Nanotechnology” is one of several that looks at ironies of technological development, showing how nanotechnology’s promise in the field of medicine, but also shows the medical harm from “free nanoparticles.” Another essay, on grapheme examines the irony of a carbon-based material that could be the key to solving climate change. These essays are engagingly written. For instance, the lead in “Universality: Complex and Chaotic Systems” certainly encourages reading the whole: “How is it that proteins in chicken retina, bus arrivals at stops at Mexico, Rietmann’s Zeta Function, proportions of amounts of words we daily use, and the neutron scattering of a Uranium-238 nuclei are correlated?” Other sections include fascinating interviews with engineers, a section on the sciences of the mind and society.

These publications showed the tangible results of the writing instruction of the school, with the Writing Center itself being, as it should be, the “center.” Of course, administrators were impressed and so were parents and families. The quality is astonishingly high and help to integrate writing instruction across disciplines. For me, reading the essays was a joy, providing a solid model of how students can take on the voice and identity of public intellectuals. We have a lot to learn from the Hisar Writing Center. Jeff and his colleagues are eager to learn about how other international school-based writing centers function.

A High School Writing Center in Istanbul was originally published in NWP Write Now on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

“Teaching is love in its purest form.” –Unknown

Walk into any discount department store during the month of August, and you will find an abundance of magnets, mugs, t-shirts, and pillows that feature a quote about teaching and its connection to love or care.

For many K-12 educators in the United States, the vast majority of whom are White women, teaching is considered much more than a job or even a profession: for these individuals, teaching is a “calling,” a noble act of service–even, at times, a sacrifice. One of the most popular quotes about teaching comes from Mustafa Kemal Atatürk–the first President of Turkey and a Problematic Fave™ if there ever was one–who reformed his country’s public education system in the mid-1930s and who famously declared that “[a] good teacher is like a candle–it consumes itself to light the way for others.”

A good teacher consumes itself to light the way for others.

Consumes itself.

Not only is this ubiquitous quote well-loved–particularly by those who are not, nor have ever been, classroom teachers–it is often distributed and/or displayed on cardstock in sweeping, swirling typefaces during Teacher Appreciation Week brunches held in teachers’ lounges across the country.

Brewing beneath sentiments like this–and others like it–is an unassailable belief that to be a “good” teacher is to love: to love one’s students, to love one’s chosen content or specialty, to love one’s profession, and so on–even to the point of “consuming” oneself in the process. In an interview for his 2018 book Love and Compassion: Exploring Their Role in Education, Dr. John Miller, Professor at the University of Toronto’s Ontario Institute for Studies in Education, says,

One can teach basic skills without love, but to truly make a difference in a student’s life, there needs to be love. Love sees teaching as an art where we explore different ways of connecting to subject matter and to students. Love brings patience and understanding, which are so important in teaching.

Along these same lines, #LoveTeaching advocate and 2014 Michigan Teacher of the Year Gary Abud, Jr. warns in his essay “A Vision for 2020: Leading with Love” that

[E]ven among the best of the best education leaders…when you are disconnected from your “why” or when you don’t keep a love for others as the fulcrum of your work, the seeds of bitterness can take root, grow, and cause weeds to grow in the garden of the heart you have for the people you serve in education. (My emphasis.)

Is love, then, the answer to teachers’ effectiveness–and, ultimately, their personal and professional fulfillment? Should love be our central “why”? And most critically: do different scholars’ notions of “love,” as it’s contextualized within the education profession, match up with and/or complement one another–or are there crucial differences that we ought to interrogate through an intersectional, feminist lens?

“Watch a teacher with a classroom full of students, and you’ll see what real love looks like.” –Teresa Kwant

Popular media has long depicted–and reflected–a fairly consistent image of the “loving” teacher via films like Dangerous Minds (1995), Dead Poets Society (1989), Up the Down Staircase (1967), Freedom Writers (2007), Matilda (1996), and Stand and Deliver (1988), as well as in television shows like Boy Meets World, Head of the Class, Glee, Saved By the Bell (Season 1), and Welcome Back, Kotter. The “loving” teacher is also a staple of many popular pieces of children’s literature, including Mrs. Frizzle (The Magic School Bus), Mr. Daniels (Fish in a Tree), Mr. Terupt (Because of Mr. Terupt), Mr. Falker (Thank You, Mr. Falker), and Miss Nelson (Miss Nelson Is Missing). Just recently, a video of British pop star Adele went viral after her former teacher, Miss MacDonald, surprised her onstage during a televised special; and in 1994, beloved actor Tom Hanks famously thanked his high school teacher Mr. Farnsworth (and inadvertently outed him as gay) while accepting his Best Actor Oscar for his work in the film Philadelphia.

What are the characteristics of these beloved teachers? Despite the historically consistent thrashing of U.S. teachers in the news media and in “concerned” parent groups across the country, popular media has traditionally bestowed upon teachers an image of benign benevolence, most often depicting them as being somewhat bemused–if occasionally frustrated–by their unruly or disinterested students. Crucially, though, these model teachers ultimately come around to “love” their students and even inspire them to be better than they were before they met them (due, of course, to their giant, underpaid hearts). “Bad” teachers, on the other hand, are often portrayed comedically–as in most Disney Channel sitcoms or in shows like, well, Teachers–and even then are given occasional opportunities for redemption through some kind of loving (if generally uncharacteristic) act.

If we use an intersectional lens to examine the identities of these celluloid pedagogues, we will discover that the majority of the so-called “good” teachers are male, White, and/or fresh-faced–curious, considering that the average American teacher is, according to Education Week contributor Madeline Will, “a 43-year-old white woman with nearly a decade and a half of teaching experience.” Regardless, the typical narrative of the “loving” educator in television and film goes something like this:

Teacher meets students.

Teacher balks at students (especially those who are Black, Brown, poor, or multiracial).

Teacher love bombs students (even if said bombing is of a “tough love” variety).

Teacher “saves” students from their sad, uninspired, oppressive lives.

Fin.

This “savior” narrative, as played out by the loving teacher, is a staple trope that many scholars have written extensively about. In her article “The White Savior Industrial Complex: A Cultural Studies Analysis of a Teacher Educator, Savior Film, and Future Teachers,” Brittany A. Aronson writes that

popular Hollywood films such as Freedom Writers often promote the development of aWSIC [White Savior Industrial Complex] by illustrating how ‘big-hearted’ [W]hite teachers (including me) embody a ‘save the day’ mentality that will lead Black and Brown children and youth to obtain a ‘successful’ academic career and upward social mobility (37–38).

She goes on to note that this trope, as part of what she calls “the hegemonic project of [W]hiteness,” embedded itself into her psyche as a novice educator, “and as a teacher, I believed my ‘good heart’ and ‘good intentions’ were enough to get through any obstacle I might have faced in the classroom” (39–40).

Amy Blizard (née Brown), an educational anthropologist at the University of Pennsylvania and author of A Good Investment?: Philanthropy and the Marketing of Race in an Urban Public School (2015), argues that the trope of the “savior” teacher is perpetuated “not only through mass media, but also in teacher training and professional development programs as well as through national [educational] policy debates’’ (129). This is abundantly demonstrated in popular professional educator books like Teach Like a Pirate (“Transform your class into a life-changing experience for your students!”) and others like it: HEART!: Fully Forming Your Professional Life as a Teacher and Leader (Chapter 4: “Got Compassion? Check!”), Fired Up Teachership (“Educators, you are the heroes that create heroes.”), and on and on.

These and other, similar examples demonstrate that the [White] savior teacher narrative is built upon love and love-adjacent concepts like care, compassion, and “heart.” But is this kind of love “praxis” the same as the kind that scholars like bell hooks and Paulo Freire write about in relation to teaching? Is this kind of love, ultimately, “love as the practice of freedom?”

“If you can’t teach them, love them. Love will teach them.” –Unknown

There are several differences between how the largely White, Western world conceptualizes what it means to teach “from a place of love” and how non-White and/or non-Western scholars envision what teaching “as an act of love” entails. (In order to differentiate between the two types of what we might call love “praxis,” I will use (l)ove to indicate how it’s conceptualized in White, Western–e.g., dominant–spaces versus (L)ove to indicate non-White and/or non-Western conceptualizations, with the caveat that neither group is monolithic.)

As is demonstrated in most American media representations of teaching and of the “loving” (generally White) teacher, love is an interpersonal gesture; something that is given or bestowed upon students, the majority of whom–especially if they are Black or Brown–are viewed through a deficit lens. This deficit view can be explicit, as in the case of teachers who use the term “Title 1 Teacher” in their bios to signify their role on social media, but it can also, and most often is, more implicit–benevolent, even. As Aronson writes, there is “an underlying assumption that teachers…are the stable influences in their students’ lives” (48), much like the “savior’’ teacher-characters that are depicted in films like Freedom Writers and Dangerous Minds (which, it turns out, are based upon real-life individuals Erin Gruwell and LouAnne Johnson, respectively, who continue to this day to profit off of their saviorism).

Nicholas Ferroni, high school teacher-activist and People Magazine’s 2014 “Sexiest Teacher Alive,” has said that “as a kid, I wanted to be a superhero, lawyer, actor, philosopher, comedian, philanthropist, judge, and doctor…so I became a teacher.” This sentiment has been posted hundreds of times on social media and, at first glance, may seem to reflect the epitome of one who engages in a praxis centered around love. But consider how this might be received by the majority-Black-and-Brown students (and their families) that Mr. Ferroni, who is White, serves in his New Jersey community. Do they, in fact, need a White “superhero” to save them from their lives, or a “philanthropist” to lift them out of poverty? Have they asked for this? What set of assumptions is Mr. Ferroni making here?

Consider how that scenario compares with one that Dr. Bettina L. Love, Professor of Education at the University of Georgia and author of the bestselling book We Want to Do More Than Survive: Abolitionist Teaching and the Pursuit of Educational Freedom (2019), writes about having grown up as a dark-skinned Black girl in upstate New York. Here she describes how two of her teachers, Mr. Clayton and Mrs. Johnson, embodied the kind of teacher-love necessary to ensure that “dark children” thrive:

To me, they were both more than teachers or role models; they were necessary parental figures. Of course, I needed my own parents, too, but I required a village to survive and understand how I mattered in this world. My parents could not do it all. (53)

In both scenarios, the teacher is taking on a larger role–a role beyond “developer of skills” or “transferer of knowledge” or even “co-creator of information.” However, there are two important differences to consider. In the first scenario, the teacher is White and the students are majority Black and Brown. In the second, the teachers are Black–the first Black male and female teachers, in fact, that Dr. Love had as a young Black girl. But there’s more.

In Mr. Ferroni’s case–as is the case with most White teachers who consider themselves to be “superheroes,” or at least aspiring ones, and who spend their days bestowing love upon all of their students–there is no indication of an awareness of his own racial identity. Subsequently, there is no acknowledgement of the power dynamic between the White teacher and his students of color. While this may have changed in recent years, at the height of his “Sexiest Teacher Alive” fame Mr. Ferroni described himself as a “straight, Christian male” whose advocacy work primarily revolved around issues of sexism and other kinds of gender oppression. Lest one think I am merely picking on this one teacher (who, I must add with full transparency, has blocked me on Twitter), rest assured that such “colorblindness” (or, in less ableist terms, color-evasiveness) is not uncommon among those who consider themselves to be such saviors. Here is what Erin Gruwell had to say about her identity in the book she wrote that the film Freedom Writers was based on:

I have always been taught to be proud of being Latina, proud of being Mexican, and I was. I was probably more proud of being a “label” than of being a human being, that’s the way most of us were taught. (93)

While she does acknowledge and take pride in her ethnic identity, she fails to acknowledge her White racial identity, which is in stark contrast to the racial makeup of her students. Elsewhere in the book, she writes:

It sounds strange, somewhat on the line between irony and absurdity, to think that people would rather label and judge something as significant as each other but completely bypass a peanut. … World peace is only a dream because people won’t allow themselves and others around them to simply be peanuts. We won’t allow the color of a man’s heart to be the color of his skin, the premise of his beliefs, and his self-worth. We won’t allow him to be a peanut, therefore we won’t allow ourselves to come to live in harmony. (18)

This implicit denial of or indifference to what Brazilian educator and philosopher Paulo Freire calls “our cultural existence as individuals and our political and economic existence as social beings” (180), which includes the racialized identities of both ourselves and our students, is part and parcel of a (l)ove praxis. So, too, is the notion that we as teachers ought to practice (l)ove in the classroom by individually “giving” students a voice (which they already have) or “empowering them” to use their varied knowledges (which U.S. schooling as an institution denies and devalues)–a common theme in professional books and memoirs written for an audience of teachers. But as bell hooks reminds us in “Love as the Practice of Freedom,” “a love ethic emphasizes the importance of service to others….To serve another I cannot see them as an object, I must see their subjecthood” (249). To move from a (l)ove praxis to a (L)ove praxis, then, one would have to understand not only how interpersonal power and oppression works, but also how systemic and institutional power affects both our own lives as well as that of our students.

To further solidify this idea, I will turn to Ed Brockenbrough, Associate Professor in the Graduate School of Education at the University of Pennsylvania, who conducted an ethnographic study at an urban HIV/AIDS prevention center that primarily serves queer youth of color in order to understand how the White women on staff effectively “engaged [in] culturally responsive modes of care, support, and advocacy” (253) for these youth. In analyzing the caring behaviors of two White women staffers in particular–who were engaged in a practice that Brockenborough calls “further mothering”–he notes that this mode of care, among other things, “require[s] a critical awareness of the ideological and material realities of [W]hiteness as power, and an ongoing commitment to assessing and addressing the impact of [W]whiteness on one’s identity and pedagogy” (268). Considering the ubiquity of White teachers working in a system that serves more and more students of color with each passing year, this seems particularly important to those committed to engaging in a [L]ove praxis.

“[I]t is impossible to teach without a forged, invented, and well-thought-out capacity to love.” –Paulo Freire

Besides these, there are additional distinctions between what typically constitutes a pedagogy of “love” in the majority of U.S. classrooms [i.e., a (l)ove praxis] and that which can be categorized as a (L)ove praxis based on the work of hooks, Freire, and others:

However, note at the top of the infographic an important similarity between the two. In both a (l)ove and a (L)ove praxis, the educator is expected and/or encouraged to “give fully” of oneself or to “go the extra mile” to serve their students. We see this both in Dr. Love’s depiction of Mr. Clayton and Mrs. Johnson as well as in Charmaine J. Smith-Campbell’s and Steven Littles’ characterization of “Freirean pedagogical love,” which “extends beyond the altruistic act of caring” that they write about in their 2016 article, “Freire’s Pedagogy of Love and a Ph.D. Student’s Experience.” In this way, teaching, they write,

becomes an unconditional, selfless, egoless commitment of educators practicing pedagogical love and expecting nothing in return for themselves….[it] calls on educators to be practitioners of agape–love given without reciprocity or personal gain–given only for the love of justice for humanity. (35)

In the case of the two White women whose “further mothering” of the youth they encountered at the HIV/AIDS prevention center, part of their being characterized as “culturally responsive” staff members included the fact that their “investment” in the youth they served “led them to go the extra mile” to do so (262) time and time again.

As a feminist, I theoretically embrace–and desire to advocate for–the existence of a (L)ove [as opposed to a (l)ove] praxis in schools and classrooms. But as a feminist, I must also ask: how does the embodiment of what it means to engage in a (L)ove praxis coexist with the gendered nature of teaching as well as its existence within a capitalist economy?

In her chapter “Time to Love” from the book Love: A Question for Feminism in the Twenty-First Century, Emerita Professor of Politics at the University of Huddersfield Valerie Bryson considers the gendered nature of all caring responsibilities, teaching included, alongside “women’s ongoing economic, social, and political disadvantage in contemporary western societies” (113)–one that disproportionately impacts Black, Brown, and Indigenous women–within a context of time. In particular, she focuses on “the contradictions between the time needed for caring for others and the temporal logic of the capitalist market place” (114) and argues for a “fluid, open-ended and process-oriented sense of time that attends to natural rhythms, unpredictable needs and the intangible processes inherent in interpersonal relationships” (116).

While effectively engaging in a (L)ove praxis should include, but also should move beyond, interpersonal acts (e.g., should involve more broader political work), I am drawn to Bryson’s attempt here to make visible the ways that those engaged in care work often do not rigidly adhere to temporal restrictions such as, in the case of teachers, approved contract hours or the academic calendar. In addition, I appreciate how elsewhere, she emphasizes the “emotional labor attached to care…that often takes place alongside other, more recordable activities.” For teachers who embody a (L)ove praxis, these activities may–and often do–include:

• reflecting on their own identities as well as those of their students and considering the many ways in which these identities may play out both in and outside of the classroom;
• engaging in advocacy/equity work both within and outside of school spaces (e.g., serving on a district-wide curriculum committee or composing and presenting a public comment at a School Board meeting);
• if living elsewhere, attending events or patronizing local businesses in an attempt to familiarize themselves with the neighborhoods/communities in which their students and their families live;
• keeping apprised of local, national, and global politics (e.g., familiarizing oneself with New Hampshire House Bill 1255);
• etc.

For U.S. teachers, the majority of whom are women (and a good number of whom have their own families/children to care for, as well as on whom the majority of familial care work often falls, particularly for those in heterosexual relationships), this can take a heavy and unsustainable toll–physically, emotionally, and even financially. Furthermore, at the risk of stating the obvious, this often invisible and undocumented sort of labor occurs within a profession that is historically underpaid, with teachers earning almost 20% less, on average, than college-educated non-teachers (Frohlich, 2020).

“Teachers have three loves: love of learning, love of learners, and the love of bringing the first two together.” –Scott Hayden

“But wait!” some argue. “Most teachers don’t go into teaching for the money. Or, at least, they shouldn’t.” And here is where we come full circle. Recall the famous quote about a “good teacher” being like a candle: “it consumes itself to light the way for others.” Yes, teaching is a service-oriented profession. Yes, schools must work alongside families and the wider community to help raise strong, resilient, compassionate children who’ve developed a robust critical consciousness and who will work to make the world a better place for all. Yes, teachers ought to commit, whole-heartedly, to embodying a (L)ove praxis. But who will (L)ove the teachers? Who will support these practitioners, the majority of whom are women, in “straddl[ing] multiple temporalities” as they engage in this care work at the same time as they live their own lives? Who will provide the space, time, and opportunity for them to learn what the vast majority of teacher preparation programs have failed to teach them–about oppressive systems, about economies of power, about their own historical complicity in both? And who will ensure, for sustainability’s sake as well as for the sake of their own ability to live well-rounded, fulfilling lives, that these teachers don’t consume themselves in order to “light the way for others”? These are the questions we must ask ourselves if we wish to move beyond the magnets and mugs–and truly commit to a (L)ove praxis in our schools.

Love in the K-12 Classroom: A Critical Comparison of [White] Teacher Saviorism and ‘Love as the… was originally published in NWP Write Now on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.

Peaceful is the name for the woods
Quiet and lovely
Summer’s sun is so hot
Winter’s snow is bitterly cold
Peaceful is the name for the woods

— by me, in third grade.

We spend most of our childhood in school, yet sometimes it seems like I remember very little of it. It’s all the more remarkable, then, when I remember an experience as vividly as the days that we left the classroom and went outside during third grade science class. This outdoor time was my favorite and I can still remember specific details.

“Peaceful is the Name for the Woods” is a poem I wrote during one of the outdoor class periods. I remember sitting on a log that had fallen and using my knees as a surface on which I passionately scratched out this poem, working to get every line exactly right — I wanted to express my appreciation for where we were and how I was feeling.

The poem became a family favorite and my mother had it mounted on wood that she hung on the wall. Over the years, the paper yellowed under the shellac as my sisters and I recited it over and over again, cracking ourselves up because now, as teenagers, we were embarrassed and uncomfortable with its intense sincerity.

Every April I feel that pull to be back outside and to be inspired by nature. Even though I live in downtown Philadelphia, I seek out places to connect wherever I can; whether it’s the moss growing between the cement bricks in the backyard, the bike trail along the river, or my friend’s backyard farm started in a plot of abandoned land. Being outdoors reconnects me to myself, my sense of peace and to my creativity.

Amy Hirtzel created a resource that would have been perfect for me as a kid! Amy, also known as @TheWordyTeacher, is a teacher and a poet of the NWP site at Kent State University. Last October for Write Out she created a resource called Contrasting Worlds where she encourages the exploration of the intersection between the human and natural world through poetry:

This video resource comes along with this one-page handout, a related slidedeck, and an example of her own work as guidance for young writers.

Her colleague Jean Kanzinger, also of the NWP site at Kent State University, created another poetry resource for Write Out called Poetry Painted From Our Connection to Nature where she demonstrates for teachers the kind of techniques used in art education and in writing about art that can enhance the description in writers’ nature poetry. This video resource comes with a related one-page handout for writers and might be just what some kids need to get themselves started:

Elizabeth Ferris, a second grade teacher with the Ohio Writing Project, created a resource focused on Using Nature to Spark Creativity alongside her own children. Here they share ideas to inspire art and poetry writing using natural found treasures; see this one-page handout and the video to get started:

In a previous post, I feature another Write Out resource created by Dr. Kim Ruffin of Roosevelt University called 4 Leaf Palette Poem also meant to encourage inspiration through engagement with materials found outdoors. Here is the related handout and the video:

Engaging a slightly different approach to noticing what is around you, Kelly Hedberg and Jessica Early of the Central Arizona Writing Project created these resources (video below and handout) that encourage writers to create found poems from words posted on public and park signs around them. They write that “the stories of place are communicated through signs. These signs may be about traffic, wildlife, weather, warnings and rules, directions, or information.”

And finally, Cecilia Pattee, from the Boise State University Writing Project, and her family take us on a walk in their city and show us how this kind of time and attention can translate into two-voice multilingual poetry. Here is a handout and the related video:

Whether you are in a city, a suburb, a rural community or small town, we encourage you to use these resources during National Poetry Month to inspire you and your writers; then go outside and connect with your place and its nature.

You never know what important work and memories you will end up creating together!

#WriteOut #NationalPoetryMonth

The Things We Remember: #WriteOut for National Poetry Month was originally published in NWP Write Now on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.