Poetry in Motion

When explaining that writing is a performance-based activity, I often use a sports analogy to illustrate that point. Writing is like playing a sport: you have to engage in it to improve.

Although we tend to think of it as strictly a cerebral process, writing is also very much a kinesthetic one, whether fingers are clicking against a keyboard or wrapped around a pen moving across paper.

Reading about writing or grammar does little to change the actual performance, just as reading about basketball wouldn't have much impact on one's ability to shoot hoops, though such reading could have value for myriad other reasons. 

What improves writing is, well, writing, which gives us yet another good reason for striving to incorporate many writing opportunities for our students throughout their time at Longview.

Watching the Longview volleyball coach give counsel to some young volleyball players recently reminded me of other dimensions of the writing-athletics analogy. The coach masterfully instructed the players on discrete parts of the game and patiently illustrated moves to make subsequent game play more effective.

This session wasn’t a game, so the stakes were lower, allowing much instruction and practice to be accomplished without game-time pressure. Understated sessions like these, which encourage concentrated focus, are arguably the building blocks of high-intensity play.

Not a minute was wasted and players were absorbed into the moment, without distractions, guided to more advantageous spatial orientation by the elegant movement and succinct communication of an expert.

At his urging and after watching him effortlessly model specific moves, the players stretched their arms above their heads and with their open hands formed triangle shapes in the air, their fingertips repeatedly lifting the ball and pressing it into flight.

The take-away message here? When it comes to student writing, teachers are very much operating as coaches, offering critical and timely feedback and pinpointing the areas of performance that need improvement or that could benefit from another approach.

The mix of low-stakes and high-stakes assignments found in various courses throughout our General Education curriculum, the foundational writing instruction provided in composition courses, and the required Writing Intensive experience all serve to ensure that our students get plenty of writing time and performance-enhancing counsel while at Longview.

If you’re searching for fresh ideas for your own classroom coaching or just want to see pure poetry in motion, think about catching a Longview Lakers volleyball game before season's end.

Other sports analogies?  Share them in the comments section.