Re-Reading My Tween Diary: Reflections on Teaching Middle School Writers
by Erin Whitney
written for the 2012 Invitational Summer Institute
“I LOVE PURPLE!” I exclaimed with exuberance, in purple marker, on a random page of the diary I kept when I was twelve, from sixth through seventh grade. My old journal, dated January 1982-February 1983, has a handmade, marbleized paper cover, and is threaded together with green string. I think I made the book itself at summer camp. There are stickers on the first page of hearts, unicorns, puppies, and kittens, overlaying the words, in cursive, “My Book.” As I re-read my diary and resurrected my identity as a young teenager, I began to think about middle school writers, the topics that are important in their lives, and how their interests play out in their writing. Here are some excerpts from my diary:
On school, January 4: Why waste my time going to school? What can you learn in 12 years that you can’t learn in 7 or 8? It’s just a pain in the big, fat A! I’d rather ski and ride horses. Then, on July 7: I miss school a lot. I had a lot of fun in Ms. Grose’s class, even if we still had to do work.
On friends: Jessica was mad because I didn’t invite her to my party. So! Andrea and I are very good friends now. I like Sarah a lot, but I don’t see her much. I’ve made a lot of friends, but not close friends.
On my sister, after a ski trip to Sugarbush, VT with my dad: I definitely don’t want Carin to come with us if we go next year. I just don’t get along with her and I’m afraid she’ll take over my ‘likeability.’
On boys: Lane and I saw this cute boy. He was adorable. We named him Matt Johnson even though that’s not his real name. We don’t know his real name. Lane thinks he’s cuter than Brett, but I don’t.
On British rock and new wave bands: I really love the Police. They are so cool. So is Pete Townshend, the Who, the Clash, and many other groups. I don’t really like Rick Springfield anymore- he’s ok. I hate the Go-Gos.
On life and my parent’s divorce: I’m confused about life. It’s so strange. I was looking at some baby pictures of me and it seems like they were just taken a week ago. I wish that Mom and Dad weren’t getting divorced. I wish we could stay a family.
Some of the things that struck me when I re-read my diary were how much my focus shifted when I started seventh grade. In sixth grade, I was writing about how many stickers I had in my collection. In seventh grade, for which I switched to Monroe Jr./ Sr. high school, I began to write mostly about boys, conflicts with friends, and how much I loved Sting. I did talk a little bit about my parent’s divorce, my dad’s new girlfriend, and the death of a family friend, but most of the diary consisted of stream-of-consciousness writing about my day-to-day experiences. Honestly, I was a bit shocked by how mundane, how boring it all was! When I cracked this book open after thirty years, I expected to find evidence of a bright, imaginative child with insight into the mysteries of the world. I had recalled the writing I did at age twelve to have a certain level of style and sophistication, but perhaps I thought that precisely because I was twelve at the time.
One of the inquiry questions I’ve had about teaching middle school writers is how to get them to go deeper with their writing. To share more about their lives, to open up and share the moments that “really matter”. I’ve found myself becoming frustrated with students choosing such topics as trips to amusement parks and going to the mall with their BFF. What I am realizing, as I re-read my tween diary, is that the everyday things (going to the movies, listening to music, hanging out with friends, and falling in and out of love with strangers) ARE the things that really matter to twelve year olds. Middle school is an incredible time of physical and emotional change for students, and perhaps I am being unfair to push back on their topics with judgmental feedback like, “Does this topic really matter to you?” Sure, we want to see our students develop an understanding of concepts such as narrative structure, word choice, and theme. We want them to grow and change as writers, and avoid sentences like “They are so cool.” However, before being too quick to guide students in their topic choices, we need to remember what it felt like to be twelve and what was important to us at the time.
Looking back at what was important to me at the time, I would have loved to have had a teacher guide me through the process of writing a personal narrative about my sister, a persuasive essay about why the Police are so much better than Rick Springfield, or a poem about Matt Johnson. Our students know what matters to them. It’s our job to teach them how to get their thoughts on the page, organize their ideas, and share their stories.
Erin Whitney has been a literacy coordinator and coach at the Folk Arts-Cultural Treasures Charter School for four years and is starting a doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania this fall. Erin attended the 2012 Invitational Summer Institute sponsored by the Philadelphia Writing Project.
Erin wrote this piece in response to a "literacy artifact" activity in the summer institute.
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