{"id":1688,"date":"2016-02-29T19:43:10","date_gmt":"2016-03-01T02:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/?p=1688"},"modified":"2016-03-01T04:42:39","modified_gmt":"2016-03-01T11:42:39","slug":"helping-students-want-to-write","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/?p=1688","title":{"rendered":"Helping Students Want to Write"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x150112.jpg\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/mikebellah.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/02\/mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x150112.jpg\" alt=\"\" title=\"mb_color_bestyearsblog-150x1501\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1689\" \/><\/a>How do you get students to want to write? Because I was a writer before I became a teacher, the question wasn\u2019t hard.<\/p>\n<p>I knew what inspired me, and it certainly wasn\u2019t money or fame. Not that I\u2019m opposed to them\u2014would take either if you offered\u2014it&#8217;s just that, so far, my writing hasn&#8217;t been good enough to merit that kind of reward.<\/p>\n<p>What motivates me is readers. When I write something funny and get a smile, or something sad and produce tears, or come up with something insightful (too rarely) and get an \u201cah ha,\u201d I\u2019m hooked.<\/p>\n<p>Maybe addicted is a better word. I have to do it again.<\/p>\n<p>So that\u2019s what I do for students. I become their reader. With little notes in the margins of their papers, I let them know how their stuff is affecting me:<\/p>\n<p>\u201cScary. Your courage is inspiring.\u201d Or, \u201cthis is beyond funny. You crack me up.\u201d Or,\u201d How sad! Can\u2019t believe she just left you guys.\u201d <\/p>\n<p>Does it work?<\/p>\n<p>Apparently.<\/p>\n<p>We\u2019ve finished with out-of-class journals (four entries per week) for the semester, and I\u2019ve already had students ask if they can keep doing them.<\/p>\n<p>Which leads to a final point. If one helps students want to write, he\u2019d better want to read\u2014because he\u2019s going to do plenty of it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>How do you get students to want to write? Because I was a writer before I became a teacher, the question wasn\u2019t hard. I knew what inspired me, and it certainly wasn\u2019t money or fame. Not that I\u2019m opposed to them\u2014would take either if you offered\u2014it&#8217;s just that, so far, my writing hasn&#8217;t been good [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1688"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1697,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1688\/revisions\/1697"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikebellah.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}