NWP

For this assignment I chose to read "Why I Write: Because There Is Power in Storytelling"

Publication: EduTopia Date: November 22, 2011 By: Heather Wolpert-Gawron, teacher-consultant at the UC Irvine Writing Project, shares how writing has become a timeline reflecting the chapters of her life. 

Linked here: https://www.nwp.org/cs/public/print/resource/3739

This particular writing spoke to me because, my inquiry project is bout the power of storytelling through art, and visual art as communication and literacy. Wolpert-Gawron's timeline of writing, and the ebbs and flows of her creative process resonated with me and my own personal autobiography with reading and writing. I think the more comfortable we get with our own creative process as educators, and loosen up our preconceived notions of what makes a true "artist" or "writer", and stop policing our own making, we can empower our students to make mistakes because we are not afraid to try and fail. If we find the joy in making we can carry this on to our students.

As Heather eloquently put, "I write because there is power in storytelling, power in advocacy, and power in sharing one's saga. I write because it is what I must do to feel like a person who has an impact on the world around her, and I believe that if we can give our students that feeling of empowerment and ownership through writing of their own world, then we will have given them and their world a gift of truth through the prism of perspectives."

I think as creators and educators we need to keep our alive our own creation to serve a a role model for our students, to help usher them into the notion that just getting out your ideas is an amazing feat that should be celebrated, because their is power in their voice. Their voice matters, no matter who's eyes and ears are open to it.