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We spend all our time here thinking about our own generation of writers, but we are missing a crisis that threatens the next generation.
The Examiner just ran a heartbreaking essay from a schoolteacher in Washington DC. According to Erica Jacobs, the battery of standardized tests assigned to students are squeezing creative writing out of the American classroom.
I taught sixth grade for two semesters in 2003, and even back then it was hard to get kids writing. As much as I love them both, videogames and Internet attention spans have already damaged the patient process of storytelling.
If we drop creative writing, we could lose a whole generation of new storytellers. Just listen to her essay:
"Mike, one of our young, hip teachers, observed, 'Teaching students to write fiction takes a lot of time. And it’s not on the SOL test, so I just don’t do it.' "The others in the teachers’ lounge nodded sadly. Mike then added, 'Now I really feel guilty. In fact, I feel terrible.' Mike is an excellent teacher and includes lots of innovative techniques in his classroom, but he confirmed what I was beginning to suspect — English teachers now focus on literature, research, and writing five paragraph essays because those are on the SOLs."
I will never forget the mind-boggling joy of writing my first private detective story in grade school many years ago. I can't imagine a world without that in school. What can we do to save creative writing in the classroom? (Thanks to After the MFA for the link)
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