Why Student Writing is Risky and Important

In the wake of school shootings and other acts of violence inflicted upon students, school administrators have looked at what they believe to foreshadow these events: student writing. In an Edutopia article entitled "Frightening Fiction: New Vigilance on Student Writing Can Yield Clues to Mental Health," freelance writer Eric Randall addresses the issue of studying student writing for signs of mental health issues. He also looks at the effect that this scrutiny has on the writing relationship that English teachers and their students share. The article stresses that teachers, especially English teachers, need to be more vigilant when reviewing student work. Gone are the days of reading for content, spelling and grammar; now the English teacher has the role of a psychologist! This concerns me, because I am unsure how I would react if a student of mine wrote something disturbing in his or her journal or other assignment.

The whole issue came into focus after the notorious Columbine High School shootings. Before Columbine, no one could have dreamed that students could inflict such acts of macabre. Post-Columbine, that all changed. It can even be argued that the tragedy at the Colorado high school was the impetus for Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho. At the time an eighth grader in a suburban Washington, D.C school, the future mass murderer wrote about suicide and homicide and his wish to duplicate the bloodshed of Columbine. This was not written in a journal, but in a paper for class to be read and graded by an English teacher!
As a result of this, veteran English teacher and NCTE Vice President Carol Jago teaches with caution. She illustrates that the era of student journals has "fallen out of favor for pedagogical reasons" and that "teachers are shying away from open-ended creative writing assignments (2)."

As for other assignments, she reminds her students that they are writing for an audience. I am appalled by the idea of teachers steering away from creative assignments in an attempt to avoid reading troublesome writing. From my experience as both a student and a student teacher, adolescents look forward to English class because it allows them to let out all of their deep and imaginative thoughts that are left stifled in classes like Math and Science. Although Jago creates limits to what her students can write, she still finds the occasional disturbance in their work and reports it to the student, parents or guidance counselor. If there is an indication of something serious, such as sexual abuse, she has to use her role as a mandated reporter and go to the proper authority.

There have been a number of instances where reporting the student's writing was the right call. Last year at a Long Island McDonald's, someone retrieved a high school sophomore's journal that contained ramblings on how to plan a Columbine-esque attack on the student's high school. It was reported to the police, who discovered that the student had attempted to buy a machine gun and explosive black powder over the Internet.

Some are against censoring, as Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon argues in an essay that he wrote for the Times in 2004. Randall does not elaborate, but suffice to say that Chabon is an advocate of freedom of speech and sees nothing wrong with students expressing themselves in an honest fashion. I agree with Chabon. Other than threats, student writing can also be read for depression, self-mutilation, abandonment, and the aforementioned signs of sexual abuse. If a student of mine was in need of help and was too uncomfortable vocalizing it, the journal might be the only place where these thoughts could be expressed. Imagine that student being told that his or her teacher was not going to be using journals anymore; what other ways would this youth call out for help?

On the other hand, I have to be able to differentiate between something serious from fanciful student writing; something Indiana high schooler Allen Lee probably wished his English teacher could decipher. In an act of poor taste, the honors student used his creative-writing class as a platform for his adolescent frustration. "He said that he was joking when he complained his teacher (who was in her first year) was so bad that it could lead to the first shooting at his high school"(3) Randall reports. I can imagine this English teacher, timid and new at the profession, reading this assignment, and wonder if something like this will happen to me when I begin my career.

While it's true that most teachers improve their craft as they continue to teach, beginner teachers aren't the most confident. She definitely overreacted, but if I placed myself in her shoes I might do the same because of instinct. It's not every day that you read something threatening about yourself, jokingly or otherwise.

In these times, teachers definitely need to be more vigilant of their students' writing, but still allow open-ended assignments.Vigilance is viewed as "healthy" to some that Randall researched, and I couldn't agree more. Censorship is the unhealthy habit.

Randall, Eric (2007). Frightening Fiction: New Vigilance on Student Writing Can Yield Clues to Mental Health [Electronic version]. Edutopia, November, [page numbers unknown]