Book Review: The Confidence to Write
Overview
Writer’s Block. Imposter syndrome. Fear of simply being perceived as a writer. The roller coaster of emotions that can spiral through all students, teachers, and writers alike are unpacked authentically in Liz Prather’s third book, The Confidence to Write: A Guide for Overcoming Fear and Developing Identity as a Writer. Throughout, she pulls from her personal experience as a high school creative writing teacher in a gifted program at Lafayette High School in Lexington, Kentucky.
While many pedagogical books approach writing in a way that seems methodical, what I appreciated most about this book is the colloquial voice that Prather took when writing it. This book felt less like a “how to” from an expert, and more like a conversation between teachers of writing. In it, she unpacks her own personal fears as a writer and teacher of writing, and offers a plethora of tools, metawrites, and techniques to try out in your classroom to help students grow as writers.
Big Ideas
While highlighting the importance of writing overall, Prather clearly defines writing identity with precision and unpacks the fears of being vulnerable as a writer. Throughout the book, overcoming the fears that accompany writing, discussing healthy modes of communication, and understanding where procrastination and perfectionism stem from within a writer are unpacked. In this, she discusses how a writer’s self identity and social identity both influence and feed into the formulation of one’s writing identity. Since writing is such a personal and vulnerable experience, writing identity has to be closely defined and developed by the writer’s experiences themself.
Pedagogical Tools
This book is constantly acting as an applicable tool for the writing teacher. Whether it’s presenting techniques to break down student walls and apprehensiveness toward writing, connecting with students, building up their writing autonomy, and so forth, Prather gives a litany of resources for teachers. Something as simple and applicable as her metawrites that have students reflect on themselves as a writer while actively engaging in the writing practice is something that all educators can easily adapt into their classroom practices. Establishing routines for writers and bringing to light the overarching anxieties that come with writing so that students don’t feel alone and are willing to challenge themselves are constantly put into practice throughout this book. Overall, one thing stood out: for a writing teacher to be effective, they have to be authentic and vulnerable with their students as well.
Throughout the entire book, Prather provides a wide range of resources for teachers to pull and immediately embed into their lessons when appropriate. Her metawrite prompts and anchor charts are embedded throughout all chapters, varying based on the general goal or focus for writing itself. The metawrites are constructed in such a way that it pushes students as writers, while also making them aware of their own writing habits and purpose as a writer. All of the metawrites brought higher-level thinking to the writing process as a whole for students in a way that was attainable for a wide range of ages.
Recommended!
Personally, as a middle school writing teacher, I found this book to be both comforting and helpful. I saw many of the anchor charts and metawrite prompts as tools that I could immediately incorporate into my own classroom. For the metawrite prompts in particular, they felt attainable for a wide range of ages and ability levels while still reaping the full span of benefits. For my seventh graders, these prompts felt very attainable, but I could see the same prompts being applied to a high school English classroom and continuing to bring an awareness and new depth of understanding of the process of writing itself to all students. I especially liked the way the prompts pushed students’ writing abilities, while also making them aware of their own choices and thought processes as a writer.
The same struggles I face everyday as a writing teacher, and the struggles that I watch my students face every day were brought to light and were normalized. I think as teachers, we strive for perfectionism with our students out of love, but that puts an incredible weight on our own shoulders. I think this book is a great resource and tool for all writing teachers to see easy ways that they can debunk writing anxieties for students, while also providing themselves with tools and the realization that their experiences are universal when teaching and writing in the classroom.
Lauren Durante is a seventh grade writing teacher in the Avon Grove School District and a graduate student at West Chester University.
