To Our Student Writers

Writing workshop is more than setting aside a period of time for writing. It also has to do with the environment we build together with our students. The social dimension of our classroom plays a crucial role in the successes our students will experience. The personal dimension does, too. It is important for each student to develop a writing identity. To that end, we should call our students “writers” as often as possible and raise them to that very conscious level of “I am a writer.”  They are authors now, and they have important things to say. Indeed, it is part of what it means to be human to be able to share our stories with others in a more permanent way. Each day we write a new page in the story of our lives. We are all important. We are connected to everyone else on this planet. We are human beings. We are writers. This poem celebrates the writers in all our classrooms.
 
To Our Student Writers

They are all writers,
Each and every one.
They have found
Power in the written word.
They have discovered
How beautiful language can be –
That it can sing and skip and run
Across the page with big energy!
They are confident and fearless,
Proud to share and publish their words.
Their hearts spill over:
The stories of their lives,
The melodies of their poems,
The truths of songs yet to be sung,
For they are still quite young…
But they are all writers,
Each and every one.

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