Cats and Water by Sandy Ferrell, Dixie High School

When I first started teaching I discovered a phenomena I call "cats and water". If you've ever tried to bathe a cat, you know how cats feel about water. It is an ordeal for both the cat and the person doing the bathing, with howling, clawing, struggling, and water splashing everywhere. In spite of the fact that the cat will feel much better after the nightmare is over, their reaction to a sink full of water borders on terror. The phrase "cats and water" is my attempt to explain how my students seemed to feel about writing. They literally groaned whenever I mentioned a writing assignment. They were unsure about where to put in those semi-colons, how to punctuate dialogue, when to capitalize, how to eliminate passive voice, the list goes on and on. I found that most of their fears were based on past experiences. They could remember writing lovely little stories when they were in elementary school, but their more recent experiences had left them a little battle-scarred.

I also made a discovery. Being western kids they loved to write about their experiences in the outdoors. Rodeos, rock climbing, camping, river running, snowboarding, and hiking were things they loved to do and experiences they wanted to share. I realized that the first step in getting students excited about writing was to help them select topics that were important to them. So I created a class called Writing about the Land, and we set out on a journey to see how we could make writing less painful and more meaningful for the students. It is a class that explores issues and clarifies beliefs. We hike, camp, and backpack in this area where we live, and then we write about it.

Along the way I think I discovered what most English teachers know, that writing can be a valuable way to help students learn in any curriculum subject. Reading the Environment edited by Melissa Walker is a collection of essays which are organized according to processes. The book contains descriptive, persuasive, narrative and reflective essays. The section titled "Exposition" is further broken down into the following:

Essays That Compare and Contrast

Essays the Classify and Divide

Essays That Define

Essays That Analyze a Process

Essays That Analyze and Problem

Essays That Analyze Cause/Effect

All of these essays demonstrate how writing can be used to learn. I started using writing in my biology classes to help students clarify what they knew, formulate opinions, and analyze information. I was pleased with the results. I think it was Mark Twain who said, "How do I know what I think until I write it down?" Writing was a way for students to figure out what they knew and to articulate their thoughts. For me, writing was another way of evaluating their progress. When we focused on content, the students were more comfortable and less resistant.

Of course, students must, at some point in the writing process, focus on the mechanics of writing. I found that they were most interested in correcting errors when someone else was going to see their work--publication. There are a number of ways to get students' work to publishable quality. We've entered writing contests, submitted to magazines, created our own classroom anthology, and exchanged work between classes. I discovered that the best way to get my students interested in producing a "quality" paper was to create an exchange with elementary students.

We go over to the elementary school and get to know the students through activities and games. When my students return to the classroom, they are generally excited about this opportunity to write a story for someone else. But they are also nervous. "What if the elementary student's story is better than mine?" That's great motivation to do a good job. In my Writing About the Land class we do legends. My students create a legend in book format with illustrations. When we return to the elementary school, we spend a half day in outdoor activities and end with a sharing of stories. It is an incredible sight to see a high school student settled in the grass under a tamarisk tree reading a story of their own making to a 4th grade child with wide eyes and a huge grin.

The class I teach is unique in the opportunities it provides students to examine their lives. Perhaps the greatest benefit I see from involving students in "writing about the land" comes from the opportunity for students to write about the place where they live. They explore their own interactions with the land. They evaluate attitudes and beliefs in their communities, they clarify where they stand on important issues, and they develop a personal code of ethics. The Survival Values in Learning says that students retain 100% of what they learn if it involves a study of themselves and their attitudes and beliefs. Writing is a process that nearly always involves that type of learning

It hasn't been perfect. Fieldwork requires much more from me as a teacher. It takes support from the district office, the principal and other teachers. And there are still a few cats who hate the water. But the moments where it works have been some of the best of my teaching career. I've loved spending the day investigating a riparian environment, collecting plants, identifying aquatic insects, measuring stream flow and then ending with the students sharing their stories of rivers--a grandfather who taught them how to fish, the swimming hole by their house, or the river where they grew up skimboarding. It is the kind of learning and sharing that makes all the effort worthwhile.

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To improve your skills at integrating science with writing, join Sandy for Whitewater and Wilderness, a five-day workshop that takes participants through Desolation and Grays canyons. For more information, see Summer Workshops in this issue of The Web.