RESPONSE TO "THE RIGHT TO CHOOSE A PERSONALLY IMPORTANT TOPIC"

Muriel's post definitely shows the beauty of a personal experience shared through writing.

I am the first to admit that it seemed perfectly fine to me when I started teaching middle school, ELA, to assign the same topic/prompt to the whole class, that is, until I read Nanci Atwell's In the Middle. The beauty of her students' writing stemmed from her allowing students to choose their own topics but also their own genres! So, while some students were writing an essay about summer vacation, others chose to tell their stories in poetry or in a play. Still others had scrapped the summer vacation topic and were writing about books they'd read, creating science fiction stories or writing letters of complaint to their local government.

Spandel cautions us, however. "We don't want to push our students off a cliff. That's what we do, in effect, when we say, 'Go ahead - write about anything that interests you.'" Some helpful tips she suggests to get started are:
1. Help students understand the differences and purposes of different kinds of writing.
2. Focus on the students themselves.  What interests them?
3. Talk honestly about where ideas come from.

Finally, Spandel suggests we do some modeling - perhaps have students assign us a topic and then demonstrate our process by typing it out in front of them. What does your process look like?

In other words, beautiful writing and personal choice comes from a foundation that has been built over time where students understand their choices and what good writing looks like.