Fifteen
Minutes. Fifteen Minutes of conversation is what I was asked to present and,
perhaps, they said, to do a little reading of my own work while I’m at it. This
week, I turned 44 years old and I realize that I’ve been at this writing thing
for a very long time, even though I’m not quite sure I position myself as a “playwright.”
My grandmother used to transform anything I drew, scribbled or morphed into a
masterpiece from her own imagination and magic. She loved words and taught me
to do the same. Even before I knew how to scribble an A, or a B, or a C, she took
my Crayola blobs of pseudo monsters, aliens, and dogs and turned them into
poetry, insights, and stories built from her own creativity. As a result, she
introduced me to journaling and writer’s notebooks, and before I entered school
I saw the blank page as a canvas to record personal and imagined history.
I am more
like my grandmother than a Newbery Prize winner.
Yes, I write every day. Writing has
been a major part of my life from the beginning, but I’m not sure I technically
identify as a “writer-writer.” My Twitter account says, “Bryan Ripley Crandall
is a Nerd. a
Thinker. Maybe a writer. a Philosopher? He doesn't know. Teacher, sometimes.
Student always. Nerd suffices. Yep, Nerd.” In my world writing is a way of
being. It is synonymous with what a person does from sunrise to sundown when he
(or she) is not walking the dog, getting the groceries, or cutting their
toenails. Writing, in essence, is life.
Of course,
Henry Louis Gates demonstrated that writing is highly political, too, and those
of us in Western cultures with a privilege to write tend to be those afforded
opportunities to “right” or “wrong” the world. It is a tremendous
responsibility. In postcolonial reality Gates demonstrated how writing historically
has been equated with reason and that anyone with the power to write has also been
empowered to change the world. Sadly, this empowerment does not reach all
populations. I’d argue that today’s K-12 schools continue to disempower young
people with the lack of writing instruction (but I digress).
I have written
novels that have never been published (nor will they because I don’t share them
with anyone). I have written short stories galore and when I taught high school
my students loved when I shared them (alas, I’ve never attempted to get them
published). I’ve also written poetry and although I’ve had a few published here
and there the words were written as a form of breathing – to keep me alive.
I’ve never been interested in the publishing world. I’m more interested in
recording my world in a way that matters to me.
A colleague in Kentucky once said, “Crandall,
you should have the disclaimer in all your workshops and classes that you are
not normal and that you freakishly write in a wide variety of genres all the
time. It’s just the way you think. For most of us who aren't you, writing is painful.” As Dr. Kelly
Chandler-Olcott said to me while mentoring my dissertation at Syracuse
University, “I’ve never met anyone who writes to know his world as much as you
do. You write everything down before you are willing to make a claim about what
it is you know.” I always reminded her, “I hardly know anything, though. I keep
on writing things down in hopes I’ll finally have something to say.” She pointed
out that she never had a student, either, who took notes in poetic form and who
answered questions she asked in prose whenever she called on me.
I position
myself as a teacher before I declare myself as a writer. The writer identity
has multiple connotations depending on whom you ask. Friends in creative
writing programs across the country share with me their isolated, creative
processes. Lawyers I know, discuss the ways they put words to paper to fulfill
their litigation responsibilities and to make the most sense of the data
they’ve collected. Academic friends in the University discuss their fear of
writing and the unfriendliness of the ways they must write to be tenured to
keep their job. But I like to ask simple questions with the groups I work with:
who in here writes short stories? who has
written a chapter book? who creates lyrics, whether in ballads or raps? who
sent an email today? or a text? who wrote a thank-you note? Ah, chances
are, every single person in this audience has written something and, in my
opinion, that makes you a writer.
Writers commit language in textual forms,
whether digital or on dead trees, in order to accomplish a goal. My niece texts.
The Liberian boys who are seniors in College now recognize they get funds from
me when they email me to say their bank accounts are in dire straits. A sports
enthusiast catches my attention on Twitter by posting 140 characters on a
subject that interests me. My point: we are all writers and the way professional
writing gets categorized is somewhat tricky.
I knew Kwame
Alexander and Matt de la Pena, both winners of Newbery prizes for Young Adult
Literature, before they were winners of Newbery prizes. They were writers
before they were writer-writers in the construction of national awards. They are now writer-writers indeed. Me? I am just a thinker and writing helps me to think. So, I guess I am a thinker-writer who, from time to time has sketched out ten-minute plays, poems, narratives, articles, doodles, opinion pieces, book chapters, grants, and speeches.
Ah, but I’ve
taught over a 1,000 K-12 students in my career and I have read remarkable
pieces of writing from a majority of them. They aren’t Pulitzer Prize winners
or recognized for artistic contributions by the Kennedy Center, but they were committed
to putting language to the page and with this, they caught my attention,
dazzled my imagination, and intrigued my intellect. They have been writers,
too. With them, we started Poetry slams, ten-minute play festivals, and
published Op-Eds in a variety of newspapers. It was with them, too, that I
first learned of Jeffrey Schwartz and his work at Greenwich Academy. We were both published in the same book, Teaching the New Writing and we are a population of
teachers who write about our teaching practice. We put our student voices into a world that too often would like to keep them silenced.
I am proud of
my dissertation accomplishment and the writing that followed since because it
has been the culmination of a eight-year project working with relocated refugee
youth in and out of school. I’m also proud of the numerous grants I’ve written
in the last four years at Fairfield University – grants totaling almost
$400,000 that I use to invest in classroom teachers and students, especially
those ostracized and marginalized by our society. I think I’m also proud of the
grants that are rejected, too, because I learned from them that my vision isn’t
always aligned with those who have the most money (and that’s okay). I’m also thrilled to have just published the 3rd edition of POW! The Power of Words, a collection of
Connecticut young writers resulting from Young Adult Literacy Labs and a teacher institute at Fairfield University, a culmination of my research and 22 years of
working with K-12 schools. Finally, I have maintained a daily blog and, to date, I’ve
had close to a million readers. That’s crazy. Who are these people who find their way to my mental meanderings? Am I writer? No, not really. I am
a thinker and blogging allows me to share my writer's notebooks online.
So, what have I been thinking about lately? Well, I wrote what I wanted to say today. I had to write it out so I knew what my thoughts actually were. I’ve also been
thinking about deconstructing violence in the English classroom, an
article tracing my work with the NO MORE VIOLENCE project in Louisville and the importance of deconstructing violent acts as depicted in young adult literature. I share the heroism of Vicki Soto and the work of the Newtown Poetry Project led by Carol Ann Davies. I’m
also thinking about my political collaboration with the CT
Mirror: Special Report: Education, Diversity, and
Change in Fairfield County, and the interactive website made available to anyone with
a search engine. I'm working on writing how that website came to be.
But, you know
what? None of that writing matters as much as having the opportunity to respond
to a letter sent to me on Google Docs by Chitunga, this kid who chiseled his
way into my world. Nothing is as important than the notes I send to my sisters, mom and dad via Facebook
and text messaging. Words matter. It’s like those I recently wrote in a workshop
with 75 middle school kids when they challenged me, on the spot, to write
something using random words they shouted out:
I am the
metamorphosis / the madman with
muscle / hatching from the
chrysalis / of an MLK dream, / the miracle of a
caterpillar spreading its
celestial wings / in mind-blowing
movement / and a magical
monkey / chomping on a leaf / while getting older / because I’m becoming more aware every step of the way.
I also told them,
U gotta write / for what’s right /& fight / with all u’r might / To insight incite / and to ignite a spotlight / to put yourselfin the limelight / outright &
forthright / A’ight?
According to my calculations this is the 3rd
page of words and that should have me around 12 minutes (with 3 minutes left to spare). I will give those minutes up in hopes to create more dialogue
for all of us in the end. Today, I was asked to do a workshop on ten-minute plays and
that is what I’ll do this afternoon. In my opening remarks, however, I wanted
to paint a broader stroke about this writing thing and the ubiquitous impact it has. Thank You.
