This story happened when I was in fourth grade, in 1965. My class had just come in from recess, and this was days after the snow had been falling and clearly would be here till spring.
Perhaps it is easy to picture fourth graders–thirty of them–coming into a classroom from recess, with heavy breathing, lost boundaries, and big movements. Add to this the start of a Michigan winter, with heavy coats and snow pants left on hooks outside the classroom, with scarves and hats also, and boots, all piled up there on the shelves outside of class. Mr. George, the janitor would come by unseen with the floor mop as we studied, and the hallway floor would mysteriously be clean and dry when we went out again to dress and go home for lunch. Somehow, we could sort all of the articles of clothing still wet from recess and dripping from the hooks and the piles on the shelf.
Our teacher, Mrs. Lovell, was especially good as a disciplinarian. Sitting at the front of the class while we took our seats on this gray, dark morning, she waited until we were seated and quiet, and then she stood up and announced we’d be doing a writing assignment. We’d be writing an essay about Christmas.
The groans were audible. Perhaps there were better ways to announce this assignment–perhaps over milk and cookies, perhaps after a nap, or perhaps not at all. I remember only resistance as she sat back at her desk at the front and watched the predictable stalling behaviors. The next thirty minutes felt like punishment as one student after another got in trouble for talking.
At one point, she scolded a girl named Linda and told her to stand up and read what she had written. Linda had curly pig tails and thick glasses and went to the front and read a couple of lines of a parody of poetry, until Mrs. Lovell scolded her and sent her back to sit down.
As she sat down, I had nothing on my page, but Linda had given me an idea I decided to act on. I began to write a parody using the one Christmas poem I knew, “The Night Before Christmas.” However, I decided to populate my piece with the people I knew, including my Italian grandmother and her cooking as Santa, and she drove a rocket ship she had little control over. I made one mistake, though; I became amused with my writing. I snickered at one of my own jokes.
Mrs. Lovell heard this and ordered me to the front of the room. I went to the front. The room was quiet. I began to read. I don’t remember much from this early attempt at penmanship and story telling except that I had read Mad Magazine and liked parody. So I knew something about this one genre of story telling. And as I read, I noticed that the class was starting to laugh. I looked over and saw that Mrs. Lovell was laughing.
Being at the center of attention was disorienting, and I don’t remember much of it except that my teacher praised me, and laughter had gotten me out of trouble.
For the next four years, Mrs. Lovell would continue to ask my mom if I was still writing. She thought I was a writer. That year, in fact, I began to write stories and share them with my father, and he would encourage me, usually telling me, “This has some good parts. Now go back and revise this.”
That year, Mrs. Lovell gave me the one gift I’ve carried with me. She told me I could write. “Could” is one of those interesting words that can suggest either ability or permission. “You could.” Or it might suggest both.
This whole path, of course, has been very uneven. No pursuit is linear.
Recently, I picked up a package from our campus mail and opened it to find a book by Andrea Lunsford with the title, Everyone’s a Writer. I think of myself as generally landing on the positive side of things, as long as I’m not denying too much reality, but just the title of this book, which I’ve long been aware of, seemed like a hard sell. I engage in every semester I teach as someone who believes that anyone can become a writer–and Lundsford’s book does give students just about everything they need to get started–thinking rhetorically about writing situations, using a writing process, and learning important genres. But really, I ask at the end of every semester, is everyone, truly, a writer? Even those who hate to write? Even those who resisted my writing class, who have learned differently from their previous teachers.
The book offers what it takes to begin writing thoughtfully for audiences and purpose. Presumably, this would include everyone, or anyone.
One thing, however, is missing. It is that extra something that Mrs. Lovell gave me during the Christmas season of 1965. It is that endorsement, “You are a writer. Go now and write.”
I have. I’ve gone and written all sorts of bad stuff. I’ve written from everything that I’ve read and liked, from Old Yeller and Tom Sawyer to Ray Bradbury, Hemingway, Flannery O’Connor, and Paul Beatty. I’ve written stories, a novel, poems, countless pages of journals. Writing has become such an important part of my life that it has helped me to work through the worst grief of my life for the last four years. Mrs. Lovell’s gift has kept on giving, and I’m very grateful to her.
I assume that I’m not alone in this. Usually, when I read a brief biography of a bestselling author, I discover that they too had a Mrs. Lovell somewhere in their background who told them they could write. This may be the one experience common to everyone who begins to take writing seriously–this encouragement from an important adult, either a parent or a teacher.
Many haven’t, though, and I understand. There are many gifts in the world. I never had a coach say, “You are a pitcher” or “You should be a running back,” but I’ve heard them tell this to some of my friends, and I’m grateful for these many gifts. I try quite regularly to encourage people in their pursuits, recognizing that some will be ready to run with it, and some won’t. This seems to be the best way to teach. I also think it’s exciting to be nearby when someone discovers what they should begin to think about doing.
This is a story I sometimes share with my literacy and teaching classes. I think it is important to foster and encourage adults to be literacy sponsors in the lives of the students they know. I hope this serves as encouragement, even if it is coming from Michigan, 1965.
I’d love to hear from you about your writing story.
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*This appeared in my December newsletter. If you’d like to receive this, please sign up in the registration section on this page.
Awesome, Tom! What a great story! And thank God for Mrs. Lovell; she knew what she was talking about. I had a teacher, Mrs. Elchlep, at CSU-F that encouraged me in this. She would read one paper aloud out of each paper we wrote during the course of the class. We only wrote about 4-5 papers during the course, and she read 2 of mine aloud. She said she usually didn’t pick the same person’s twice (plus she was pro-choice and one of the papers was pro-life). Her doing that, plus her positive, affirming notes on my papers, made me believe I was a “could” write.
Dawn, that’s so cool that you had a teacher at CSU-F who did that. So almost half of your writing for that semester was deemed exemplary! I hope you keep writing and expressing your ideas and your position on everything!