Benefits of WHS writing mentors
As a high school English teacher, I would like to take a moment to express my belief in the power of written communication and to highlight some of benefits of the Writing Mentors program at Whitefish High School, supported by the Whitefish Education Foundation.
Let’s start with my conviction that writing is a cornerstone of academic success and an essential tool of civic engagement. I believe the ability to express oneself in writing has never been more important than it is today. Writing is the medium for all online communication, making it a critical 21st century skill that all students must master in order to be heard and understood in an increasingly digital age. Furthermore, writing is a powerful tool for self reflection, which is essential for personal and intellectual growth. My students learn to hear their own voices and reflect upon their own ideas only when those ideas are written down. Spoken words are cheap, but written words have the power to resonate with an audience half a world away as easily as they do with the person sitting next to us, and they require a focus and consideration that does not commonly accompany the words we speak. It is through writing that we develop an awareness of our own thought processes. Only then can we begin to make conscious choices about thoughts we entertain.
Due largely to my and my colleagues’ conviction in the power of the written word, students in our English classes are given daily opportunities to practice with the elements of mechanics and style essential to effective written communication. I want my students to become comfortable with the conventions of language that enable others to understand them, and I want them to develop and refine their own individual style and voice in order to achieve a desired impact on their chosen audience. Mostly, I want students to reflect on their own ideas and the ways in which those ideas are presented to and received by their peers and the world at large. Through reflection, they learn to evaluate the integrity of their own ideas as well as those presented by others. In an age where so much information is exchanged at a click, this is a critical life skill we all need to master.
Here’s the challenge: with writing, as with thinking in general, growth is only achieved through conscious reflection and revision. One must do the work, and although writing is itself a solo act, the process of revision needs an audience. Intentional, effective revision requires direct one-on-one feedback over multiple drafts. And there’s the rub: that task is functionally impractical maybe downright impossible for a single teacher with five or six classes of 25 or more students each. I simply cannot provide the critical feedback that leads to significant improvement for all of my 125 students on each draft of every essay they write in my classroom.
This is where the Writing Mentors program becomes such a critical extension of my individual efforts in the classroom. With the help of the Writing Mentors, I am able to provide an original and varied real world audience for my students with which they are able to practice and develop the critical elements of their own writing. With the mentors in my classroom, each student receives the direct feedback and support they need to improve. Perhaps most importantly, students learn to see their own work through the eyes of their readers, and the quality of their communication improves along with the quality of their thinking.
I believe that every single person has something important to say, and I am convinced that equipping our students with the ability to communicate effectively is among the greatest gifts we can give to them as well as the society in which they live. The Writing Mentors program at Whitefish High School helps make this possible for all of our students. Please support the Writing Mentors program with a donation to the Whitefish Education Foundation, and remember to celebrate this critical work during the Great Fish Community Challenge.
— Kyle Fedderly, Whitefish