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The idea that students can choose for themselves what it is that they are writing needs to be true. I recall in seventh grade my teacher saying that we were each going to write a story about anything we wanted. We each had to tell her briefly what we were going to write about. I, being a fantasy fan, wanted to write about fairies and elves. She told me I couldn’t write it, because the story had to be based in reality. I was devastated. She had said anything. However, that is not what she meant. She meant anything within a certain context, and that context was our own world. I managed to get away with writing a story about a family taking a hike in the woods, coming upon some strange creature that could possessed people, and then everything seemed fine at the end but the younger brother had red eyes indicating possession. My teacher really liked the ending. Was it completely based in reality? No, but it was close enough that she allowed it, thank goodness. I don’t know what it is that teachers have against fantasy or science fiction stories. It requires the same amount of work, more so even to have the imaginary world make sense since you have to build the world and the people, customs, culture, from the ground up, along with consistency and continuity to avoid storyline pitfalls or loopholes.
It’s also a bit hypocritical. In elementary school many of the books that are read to students are anthropomorphic, which is not based in reality at all. Then there are books like the Magic Tree House series or the Adventures of the Bailey School Kids where things happen that are not possible. What? A tree house that can transport Jack and Annie back and forth through time using books as the medium? Impossible! But children love it! And teaches a bit of history at the same time. What? Strange unexplainable things happening at a school with genies and unicorns and such things? Impossible! But what fun to read! So, the message is, we can read fantastical stories but we can’t write them? Does that make sense? Just because a piece of writing is not based in reality does not mean it doesn’t have any value. I dare say, it even helps people talk about things that are very difficult to talk about since what’s happening in the story is not real, but we can still relate to it. No matter the genre being written the author still draws upon his or her knowledge and experience when writing.
Now, if an assignment is to write a persuasive piece or a journal then fantasy writing would not be appropriate, but with those pieces of writing the parameters are set. After you figure out the purpose of your writing, then the writing process is the same. Why should it matter if a child chooses to write a story that has elves traveling in spaceships instead of about humans traveling in airplanes? I believe that it is important to allow students the creative freedom to write any kind of story. I recently read a story by a first grader that was about a mom killing a baby, finding someone to help her kill everyone, then the two killed everyone but then they had no one else to kill so they killed each other. The illustrations were quite gory. One might think that this was a disturbed child but the child was exposed to horror movies by her older siblings and this was her way of working out what it was she was watching. Students need that freedom of expression and creativity.
I remember in high school art class that while we could pick the subject matter of our pieces, we always had to work within the medium provided, be it embossing, watercolor and ink, or tempura paints. At Yuba College, I took a Creative Arts Class that was geared towards preschool aged children. We had to work with the very tools that we were going to ask our preschoolers to use and do the activities we would ask them to do. Ramona Knight explained what was expected of us (lots of art projects with directions for a portfolio), and after talking for about 45 minutes she said, okay, get to work. I raised my hand and asked, what are we doing? She said, whatever you want. I was flabbergasted. What did she mean whatever I wanted? After establishing that she really meant whatever you want, I was in a state of shock. I did not know what to do. I literally spent the next hour and a half out of that three hour class doing nothing. Miss Ramona (we called everyone Miss so and so, it’s a preschool thing) after a while suggested that I look through the textbook to see if anything caught my eye. Time was ticking by, and I didn’t want to be left with nothing to show for my three hours of class. So, I picked blotto art, and I was really happy with the results. I still have it. Once I managed to get over the hurdle of really having a choice I was able to enjoy the class. It was. . . liberating.
I was so used to having someone tell me what I had to do, especially in an academic setting, that for a while I didn’t know how to do something completely on my own. There is something wrong with that. There are times when it’s good to teach specific techniques and how to use certain tools, but sometimes we need to have the choice to really do what whatever we want.
Tompkins, G. E. (2010). Literacy for the 21st Century. A Balanced Approach. 5th edition. Allyn & Bacon: Pearson Education.
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