Because I Am a Teacher-Writer by Dawn Sherriff

I am a teacher-writer.  My process is my own.  I often find ideas through observation and sketching.   I keep a journal.  I do not write or sketch every day but my journal is always there for me when the lightning strikes.  I do reread the pages of my journal.  This has taught me the value of looking back to move forward.  I also have a blog.  Committing to my blog has taught me about deadlines (thanks TWT and Teach Write). My blog has also taught me how feedback can connect writers.  Feedback is a powerful link for writers.  When I read the feedback fellow writers offer on my blog, it energizes me and helps me recommit, each week, to my blogging. 

I am a reader.  Reading not only opens my eyes and mind to the possibilities of the world but to the possibilities that lie within words and sentences. 

I have been keeping a journal for 26 years.  It started when I became a teacher.  I was raised in the profession as a teacher-researcher.  The majority of my initial writing and observations were rooted in my classroom.  As time went on and I developed a love for reading and writing, I began to dabble with poetry, line drawings, and language in my journal.  Slowly, I began to open my journal not only to show but to teach. My sketches, observations, and writing taught me my process as a writer.  Ralph Fletcher says there is no single writing process that all writers go through for every writing piece.  To this day, I continue to learn about my habits and process as a writer.

During the 2015-2016 school year teachers were feeling confined by their writing instruction.  We read Joy Write, by Ralph Fletcher.  We decided to work together with the purpose of growing our experiences as teacher-writers.   We began to discuss and wonder how we could create greenbelts in classrooms.  Fletcher describes the greenbelt as a time for writers to write with a sense of discovery and play.  It is a time for teachers to take a step back and let the loose the writers.  My colleagues and I hoped that together, we might begin to enrich our writing instruction and expand our own experiences as teacher-writers.

This past year, I worked with Leigh-Ann and her first graders and Denia and her fifth graders to grow a greenbelt in their classrooms.  We did this through Journals.  We dedicated time each week for the children to use writing, sketching, and pictures to play, discover and think.  We wanted them to build habits of writers through Journal Pages.  Each week we framed the mini-workshop around a writerly habit.  I have learned about these habits as I developed my own.  For example, I learned through my own experience and playing with process, that copying a picture can support the discovery of ideas and thoughts worthy of writing.   These habits have been validated through reading the work of Donald Murray, Donald Graves, Ralph Fletcher, Georgia Heard, and others.

One week the invitations for Journal Pages looked like this:

With simple choices, clear structure and time, children drew to think and discover. 

While Harrison drew and wrote, he thought of a vacation in Maine:

These October first graders were developing the habit of observing to think and to listen to their own minds and ideas as they drew.  In 1999, Donald Graves wrote,

“We live in a noisy, busy world that shouts for our attention.  We learn to screen out stimuli in order to perform the normal tasks of daily living.  The problem is that we become accomplished at ignoring our senses.  We look but we don’t see.” 

Bring Life into Learning

The choices we offer during Journal Pages encourage children to see.  To see the possibilities in a picture, to see their thinking and ideas appear on paper when they are given a simple structure and time.

Another workshop invited writers to copy an art card, observe or use the #DWHabit Word of The Day as inspiration to write and/or draw:

Avery wrote and drew:

Ari, a 5th grader sketched and wrote:

I believe that when we teach from a place of not only understanding but experience AND understanding, we ooze empathy and our teaching is real and the kids know it.  This is the place we all need to work to teach from. 

I am thankful to work with teachers who have invited me into their classrooms as a colleague and a teacher-writer.  So my advice is to not only know your curriculum but live like a writer.  Build experiences in your classroom that are rooted in what you know a writer needs because you are a teacher-writer.


Dawn Sherriff is a Literacy Specialist who has been teaching for 26 years.  Her reading and writing work is rooted in visual literacy. She has worked with the Yale Center for British Arts teaching their Visual Literacy Summer Institute for teachers. Dawn thrives on working with teachers and children to develop their own process and habits as writers.  She continues to learn about her own process with her own journal and blog. She blogs weekly at let's observe and tweets sporadically at @dawnsherriff2.  When she’s not reading, writing, or blogging, she can be found driving her three girls around, sweating at Burn Boot Camp, or sitting poolside.