How often did I sit in my youth, bored, frustrated, and irritated at yet another writing assignment? It was not that I could not produce what I needed for the grade; I just did not feel challenged. I did not find many things of note in the daily life of a girl from inner-city Memphis. But then I encountered one of my most influential educators, Mrs. Anne Lawson. “On the contrary,” she would excitedly drawl, “you have plenty to tell. Just look around you and pay attention. Use your imagination. But write, for goodness sake! Write!”

Using her advice, I began to look around for inspiration. I knew that she wanted us to write for the sake of practice, but I was not exactly comfortable writing about the drug dealers or prostitutes I saw on my way to and from school. But I watched and waited for the inspiration bug to bite. Soon I realized that my school locker, full of my friends’ pictures, books, jackets, and girly bling was worth writing about. So was the manager at my after-school job (she got the greatest eye-rolls from me almost daily), along with anecdotes about my coworkers’ antics on break. I realized that my world, albeit small, was full of ideas and stories waiting to be told. So, I began to write.

During the formation of a few paragraphs, I wondered what good it would do for Mrs. Lawson to read my rambling thoughts about growing up in a housing project amid crime and despair. She soon expressed her feelings: it was simple a method to encourage us to write. While she was death on us for profanity and slang, she wanted us to feel free to express ourselves without the pressure of grades. Surprisingly, this news worked, for Mrs. Lawson found she had 22 eager scribes by the end of the first semester. There were days I could not wait to turn in my notebook for her to peruse and critique. I would feel as though I had handed in an article for The New York Times.

I believed in Mrs. Lawson’s ability to extract potential from her students, and it is a method I plan to use so many years later in my own classroom. Students are usually curious about their assignments, but the addition of ungraded assignments could lead to questions and concerns. Why bother if it is not for a grade? Why do the work for nothing in the end? It takes an open-minded educator to show students that even the unorthodox methods are effective. Teaching a student to write for the sake of writing can give them the power of communicative diversity: speak, write, draw, etc., to express themselves coherently and sufficiently. If we give them a foundation, it is their responsibility to build upon it, and the structure depends on their level of determination. If they show no interest, we cannot hold it against them; everyone is not meant to be a writer and after all, it is not for a grade. But we can teach them the importance through note taking, note-making, and journals, which challenges them to put long, ambiguous words into a language that the student can understand. I do believe that this is effective learning for both student and teacher, and can only have positive effects on the student’s self-worth and ability. For example, keeping notes has never been a habit of mine. But I realized that I stressed less during exams when I created notes. It taught me that I could successfully prepare myself to score higher as well as understand exactly what the teacher was saying. Writing has the same effect. When I look back over past assignments, I smile knowing that my writing improved, my grades got better, and that perhaps Mrs. Lawson was right. Writing in any form or subject area could be a steppingstone to greater and more interesting things.