I had what is probably my last session with the student I mentioned in my last post. It was snowing very hard in the part of the county where I would meet him, and I almost thought about asking if it would be ok to come another day, but I trudged through the quickly falling snow to meet him.
My plan was for us to pick his best piece of writing from the exercises we had done together. I explained that I’ll try to submit it to a book that is published by the Northern Virginia Writing Project (of which I am a member). Entrance into the annual publication is competitive, so that was all the more incentive for us to polish the piece.
So he looked through his black and white notebook, saying things like, “Oh, I really like this one!” and, “This one is powerful, too!” We looked for the strengths of the pieces, and then he asked, “Can’t I submit two?” And, actually, he could, so then we went looking for two.
We selected one poem and one narrative. I volunteered to type them for him (they were in longhand), and he agreed. He said he would work on the narrative piece, and I watched the snow fall. Thick flakes coated the trees on the hillside, framed by the large dining room window from where we worked. It was hard not to grow contemplative as both the snow fell and I recognized this was our last class together.
Then he made a suggestion. “What if you type while I tell you what to write, and then I can add some stuff as you’re typing?” My initial reaction was that of the teacher-to-student thinking of, “Hey, do your own work!” But then as I was realizing this was in fact a good suggestion, he seemed to sense my discomfort and said, “I mean, I’ll tell you slowly, and we can work on it together.” And, this seemed like a great suggestion. I’ve helped other people write before, and this seemed like a good request from him, recognizing how I could help him in the act of writing.
He had written a very intense piece, and he wanted to insert a few extra details to make the general statements more true. This was his observation of what it needed. I handed over the laptop, and he typed a few details beneath the narrative. Then he thought through the best ways to insert them.
The work was complete. It was stronger than it had been when we started it from his journal, and it was past time for me to leave. The roads were going to be treacherous at this point (four or five inches of snow had piled up in about two hours). But, from inside, it was all still beautiful. The world had grown still, safe, calm–a reflection of the writing we had come to do, together.
I thanked my student for teaching me… explaining that I had learned a lot from him. I also said it was possible that his placement might be at one of my sites, so maybe we didn’t have to say goodbye. Then I took him back to his classroom and slipped out the door, into the quiet world of snow.
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