Finding Voice

In preparation for my author's talk this week (Anna Quindlen) I have spent a lot of time thinking about voice. If you knew my history with "voice," you would find this ironic. "How can they take off points for "voice" they can't even explain what it is!" my 15-year old daughter would complain staring at the red circles on the graded essay rubric. I commiserated with her...How indeed?! T o me, voice was some undefined, elusive quality to which I responded without analysis. This class on composing has definitely made me more critically aware of "voice" in writing, as well as the inner and interconnections between what is being said, who is saying it, how it is being read, and who is reading it.

Two of the articles we read for this week, "'Speaking Up' and 'Speaking Out' " by Annette Henry and "The Listening Eye: Reflections on the Writing Conference" by Donald Murray caused me to reflect on the importance of a student writer finding his/her voice and the role of the writing teacher in facilitating this to happen. In both cases, but in different ways, Henry and Murray moved toward the importance of listening to the student, validating his/her concerns and manner of expression, helping the student communicate his/her thoughts and voice in writing itself. Henry, interested in designing a writing workshop that would help ESL, African Carribean 14 and 15 year old girls find their "voices." Her interest was in supporting freeing those girls speak up for themselves. She did a lot of prewriting activities (drama, problem-posing circles, discussion--great ideas I will use) to prepare them to write. She did create a space that empowered them to write. Yet as her students "came to voice," they challenged some of her assumptions. Some girls assumed traditional female roles in their writing; one raised issues private areas of morals and sexuality the Henry had not foreseen exploring. Henry found a "commitment to student's voices" and "collective curricular" decisions necessitated allowing her "research aims and agenda to be reshaped or even die off" (Henry 248)

Murray did not have an activist agenda--his article speaks about the value of conferencing. Like Henry, he created an environment where students were encouraged, actually required, to find their voices. His writing class is non-directed...the students write with their own voices. He models what questions they should ask themselves; they figure out what their writing will become and how to make it stronger. The teacher is first of all a listener...and he listens for the authentic voice and purpose of each author. I was struck by the fact that Murray respects the author's authorship. He says that you can't help edit until near "the end of the process, until the author has found something important to say and a way to say it."

After reading these articles, I will ask more questions of the author in a writing conference, rather than assume that I know what he/she wants to express. I realize I am guilty of this. I will try to remember that "it is not my mind's eye that is looking at the subject" or "my language which is telling me what the eye has seen" (Murray 17). Most of our writing conferences, though, are really about editing; the subjects have not been chosen by the students; the ideas to be expressed often have more to do with the task designer than the author. Expressive writing is not a big part of our curriculum at my high school except for a creative writing elective that can be taken repeatedly. At the high school level, we don't consistently create opportunities and spaces where students can find their literary voices. It's hard not to say, we should.

Barb