By Pernille Ripp, @TheEdCollab
To celebrate NCTE’s National Day on Writing we are sharing posts from The Educator Collaborative family today. Follow the official hashtag: #WhyIWrite
For many years I was not a writer. I wrote, sure, don’t we all even when we say we don’t? But nothing of substance, nothing that mattered. Writing became a means to an end; to get an A, to clarify thoughts, to leave a message. There was nothing poetic in my grocery lists and fictitious lesson plans. A tool of necessity and nothing else. Lists were made to be crossed off, holiday were cards filled with abbreviated sentiments, purpose and productivity were the reasons for writing.
Until I needed release. Until the ideas in my heads were spilling out and I no longer knew what to do with these thoughts that kept on coming no matter how many conversations I had. So I wrote. And I still write. And I still don’t know where the writing will take me or what I will discuss. After all, sometimes the words come faster than I can keep up with.
So I write because it is a necessity.
I write because it is like breathing.
I write because it is the only way I can make sense of everything.
I write to remember
I write to forget.
I write sometimes just to see it on the page and know that it will be okay.
And I share my writing so that others may not feel so alone.
This year, I have asked my students why they write. What they write. How they write. Many do not know, not yet, but they will. We will explore and practice, reflect and try. We will share when we want and throw away when we need to. We will write as if it matters, because in the end it really does. I hope that by the end of the year they too will know that writing is not something we do, it is something we are. Something that is a part of us, even when we say we don’t write.
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