Child as author

Radhika Chapparia

In March 2020 I joined a school close to Bangalore city, but it was also the time when schools in India began to close due to COVID-19. Through the many months since then, my engagement with children has been far limited in comparison to what it would have been if children had not stopped going to school. So, based on my experiences there’s very little I can say with certainty about myself as a teacher and about the learning lives of children. But I can safely lay claim to the experience of closely observing and conversing with a seasoned language teacher; thereby, coming in touch with an implied conception of a child learner in the context of language learning, and some pedagogical practices that seem to support that conception.

In this piece, I will attempt to put to words my imagination of another’s conception, as it was never told to me in so many words. Surely, it will be laden with many, many, interpretations and leaps my mind must have made. As a reader of this article, my request to you is not to be lenient with my interpretations; please question them for all you must. At the same time, I urge you to explore the pedagogical ideas that they may spark in you. Perhaps, these ideas can be taken to the classroom and to other teachers by you?

Nurturing a writer
In a language classroom one possible way to understand a child learner is to consider her¹ an author. According to this conception it’s possible for any child to have ideas, thoughts and feelings that she would like to capture in a written form to convey to an audience. Furthermore, the act of writing (composing both prose and verse) is a process – not a linear one at that – and requires striving for greater clarity about what one wants to express through writing. Let’s see what this implies for classroom practices.

To begin with, the emphasis is not on completing a composition independently and with minimum errors of spelling and grammar. Rather, it involves and begins with brainstorming several ideas (both collectively and independently) and then selecting one idea to pursue in one’s writing. This aspect of a language classroom comes quite close to what several writers practice in their writing lives: keeping a writer’s notebook². The development of an idea to a final readable piece is not a linear process. Once an idea is selected, the child has to both, expand the idea and decide the form in which the idea will be expressed. The idea can be expressed in the form of a short story, an essay, a poem, a comic strip, lyrics for a song and so on. Even within the selected form, a range of styles can be explored: the narrative style in the case of a story and comic strip; type of essays and poems also have a wide range to select from. Sometimes the form can be decided beforehand: a poster, a play script (to be performed later), a thematic magazine with periodic issues or a travel brochure. Whether the form is chosen by the student or decided by the teacher, there are several stages involved before a final piece is arrived at: writing involves conceptualizing an idea before and while writing several drafts, reading aloud one’s composition to oneself and to peers, friends, teachers and family members to receive feedback and incorporating worthwhile feedback in the subsequent draft(s). It is accepted that it’s only after a few iterations that the child will inch closer to a final piece, which can later either be published (in-house) or shared with a wider audience (even if that audience is a bunch of teachers who teach other subjects to the group or other groups of children in the same school.)

A teacher is required to facilitate this progress from the starting point of articulating ideas and selecting one, to the ‘final piece’ stage by ensuring that time is allocated for each of the following: (i) to think of ideas, present them to peers, and in conversation with them arrive at one idea to pursue in one’s writing (ii) to speak about the chosen idea to unravel it and obtain clarity about it (iii) to read the draft to others, to get feedback and to read out the final piece at a later point. Of course, this needn’t be done with every successive draft composed by the child or for all the works of writing undertaken by the child throughout the academic year. In addition to all this, a teacher will be required to introduce short and focussed lessons to address any specific skill that the child may need to further develop in order to complete the writing task. For example, while writing a short story a child may not be able to develop the main character. At this point, a focussed lesson on writing character sketches will aid progress.

Such writing projects may take one or two months or up to a year for completion. They can be undertaken independently, in pairs or in small groups with 5-6 members. The decision will depend on several factors: the nature of the project, learning objectives that a teacher has in mind, the varying language abilities of children in the group and the number of children a teacher will be required to guide through the project.

According to this conception of child as an author, adequate knowledge about a topic, correct spellings, grammar rules and vocabulary are not sufficient for writing. The act of writing would draw heavily from observations made from the surrounding world and includes a desire to articulate it to others in writing. However, in no way does this conception imply that the aspects of language learning such as spellings, grammar rules and vocabulary are not to be given their due importance. They are an essential part of language learning and often require drill work and repetition. For a writer, correct spelling, sound grammar and rich vocabulary are essentials required to facilitate her audiences’ comprehension and enhance her own writing to hook her readers to it. Nevertheless, they must not become roadblocks in the path from translating a seed idea to a final written piece.

Learning to form coherent paragraphs, using conventions of the language, and being able to think in terms of literary devices (such as simile, metaphor and personification) and so on are all a part of revising the drafts before arriving at a final piece. In teaching these rules of good writing and helping the child to retain them, a language teacher can also employ mnemonic devices such as acronyms and analogies. Two examples that I’ve encountered during my observation are: (i) calling the COPS (see picture 1) and (ii) a paragraph as a sandwich: children are asked to think of the key elements of a sandwich, which are analogous to the key elements of a paragraph (see picture 2).

It must be clear by now that what lies at the heart of our child as an author conception is the emphasis placed on the development of and the progressive achievement of clarity about one’s ideas, thoughts and feelings that come about in the very act of writing.

However, where from will the child learn to imagine, have ideas and experience the magic of skillfully employed language with its devices and tropes to be able to pursue all this in her own writing? This conception needs to be complemented by the child as a reader conception. It requires immersive reading experiences and a regular exposure to a wide range of reading material and styles of writing. The specific role that libraries and library classes play in this cannot be discounted; there is so much to explore in this that the topic is worthy of a separate essay.

Child as a reader
There are several aspects to this conception. The first is that developing a child’s interest in the world of print is an educational goal. Items such as books, magazines, newspapers and pamphlets aren’t mere sources of information, or a means to practice the skill of decoding words and making meaning, they are literary artifacts. Not only are they a means to expand one’s knowledge about one topic or another, of entertainment, and of losing oneself in a world of narratives, but they also serve as sources of imagery, mood, setting, tone, and different types of writing styles (such as descriptive, persuasive, and narrative.)

For a teacher, this view of the child would translate to both, providing access to and engaging the child in a wide range of reading material (often handpicked by the teacher.) In the classroom, while reading a text, the child can be nudged by her teacher to pay attention to its literary elements, the quality of writing and the meaning of the text in the context of her life experiences. The child can be asked if she has experienced something similar to what is narrated in a story and if she can write about it. She can be given beginning sentences from a novel and be asked to continue writing in the same tone. While teaching the child to write in different styles, examples can be pulled from these sources as well, rather than sticking to one or two examples that are provided in the textbook. Furthermore, examples of different writing styles can also be found and shared by the child herself from her own repertoire of reading.

According to this conception, changes in the child’s tastes and preferences in reading and the gradual development of a critical eye are well accepted. The child can be encouraged to browse and select books for independent reading and recommendations of books can be made based on the child’s preferences. At the same time, when the prevalent taste or preference seems to hinder a child from exploring other genres the teacher can nudge the child to pick up other kinds of books, to try something new. Sometimes when an entire group of children is found over-consuming or indulging in a particular genre, or lacking in exposure to a specific genre, other books can be deliberately incorporated into the language and library curriculum for the term/semester/year.

The child’s ability to express in writing her ideas, thoughts and feelings that we had encountered earlier in the conception of the child as an author, continues to be present in the teacher’s mind when she considers the child as a reader. But this time around it’s the ability of the child to articulate her understanding of what she has read. Conversations, discussions and debates moderated by the teacher in the classroom can facilitate the formation of thoughts about agreement or disagreements with the content read by the child. What else can develop in such settings is the ability to point out new pieces of information learnt, perspectives encountered for the first time, and connections made with her life experiences or others’ life experiences upon reading and thinking about the text.

Sharing thoughts and feelings may not come naturally to each child. So, a teacher is required to draw such responses from the child. Some children will be able to express their thoughts and feelings when a teacher poses the following question, ‘What are some of your thoughts and feelings?’, or ‘What struck you upon reading this?’ But others may need scaffolding. For them a teacher can (i) pose a different question to invite thoughts and feelings about a specific fact or event, (ii) ask if it reminded her of some person or event from her life, (iii) ask to present the idea to others, and (iv) in the case of a story, ask to create an alternative ending to the story (and later discuss the changes made to it and the reasons for it.) Each of the above can be undertaken as group-work or done individually. Such efforts made by a teacher can make it easier for the child to stay with the text for a wee bit longer and continue to think about it. In all of the above there is room for further questioning and back-and-forth between the concerned child and her peers and teachers.

In this conception of a child as an author, there lies an opportunity for the child to comprehend the effort that goes into writing a publishable piece. The child can, by way of experience, develop a sense of the hard work involved in conveying an idea in written form, crafting a crisp sentence, finding the perfect words, arriving at the correct rhyme, and so on. It makes possible an enhanced understanding of how language and literature works, and an ability to appreciate it as if from the inside.

1) In this article, the pronoun her is used for all children.
2) (i) The article ‘Messy attics of the mind’: what’s inside a writer’s notebook?’ written by Philip Horne, Paul Theroux, Susie Boyt and Amit Chaudhari, and published in The Guardian on 6 April, 2018 serves as an introduction to a writer’s notebook and can be found here: https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/apr/06/tales-masters-notebooks-stories-henry-james; (ii) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pcIh_nNFJaA is the link to a short YouTube video in which author David Almond talks about his messy, imperfect notebook and the process by which he is able to turn it into a readable book.

The author works at Centre for Learning, Bangalore. She is an alumna of Azim Premji University. She can be reached at radhika.chhaparia@gmail.com.