Creating an Authentic Audience for Student Work
By Middle School ELA Teacher Shelby Denhof
My seventh grade language arts students begin each year with a simple assignment — tell a story. I give them a few guidelines: “This story needs to be true, it needs to be about you, and it needs to be about a time that was meaningful.” After brushing off the mental cobwebs that come from summer vacation, we begin brainstorming together, then over the next few weeks work through drafts as we practice the finer elements of storytelling — how to draw readers in, how to insert feeling and emotion into our words, and how to decide on the most essential details. And then — after all the workshopping, drafting, and grading — students get their narratives back, glance at their grade, and toss them in the recycling bin. We then move on.
That’s at least how it went my first year of teaching. As I transitioned in my second year, I felt bothered by the clear silliness of writing an essay that just gets thrown away without a second thought. Sure, there’s benefit to strengthening those writing skills, but why should students care? Why put real effort into something that just ends up in the trash? I understand why I saw so many students go from draft to draft without making any significant edits. Really, why make something good if only the teacher will read it?
These thoughts have moved me to want to provide my students with authentic audiences for their work, so instead of just me or their classmates reading their work, people outside the classroom and even outside the school could, too.
I’m a huge fan of podcasts and utilize them frequently in the classroom (often through a site called Listenwise). One morning I was listening to The Moth — a personal favorite — and it hit me: couldn’t my students record their own narratives as podcasts? I gave my students a large window of time to complete their voice recordings so they could troubleshoot any problems with technology, but ultimately all of students did readings of their own work, most of which were posted to our classroom Soundcloud page. What’s nice about Soundcloud is that many students were able to do their recordings directly through Soundcloud, simplifying the entire process. By recording themselves reading their stories, students benefited from having the chance to do many takes. The fact that they could do it again if they weren’t satisfied meant they got more practice speaking and more practice honing in those strong presentation skills all teachers stress. By having them on Soundcloud, too, students could not only listen to each other’s stories, but anyone could (although, there is a private option if students felt uncomfortable with that). This podcast element to the assignment gave students more practice public speaking, a chance to self-evaluate their work and adjust accordingly, and had the buy-in needed to push themselves to do their best.
From there, we took it one step further. After sharing with a local coffee shop owner about this project and my mission with my students’ writing, he agreed to let me use his space for an event with my students. Just as published authors travel to do speaking engagements, my students were going to get that same kind of feeling, that same kind of attention and appreciation for their writing. The event title was “Voices: Stories of Young Writers.”
During the one-hour event, nine students stood up to read their two- or three-page stories. They had reserved their spots in advance a few weeks prior to the event. Some students signed themselves up right away after I shared about it. Others took some coaxing and confidence-building to get to the point of signing up. What was most special about this experience, however, was seeing the wide range of students that wanted their voices heard. Few were predictable. Many of the students who signed up to read their stories are kids who never raise their hands to share in class. Many of them even struggle with completing assignments, finding any sort success in school, or fitting in with their peers. Seeing them get up in front of an audience of fifty parents, peers, and community members to share their own words was momentous for them and for me. I couldn’t have been prouder of them. Each kid walked away with a big grin and a feeling of accomplishment and appreciation. That was the whole goal.
This narrative project — including the writing, the podcast, and the speaking event — didn’t solve the persistent question of how to give my students a larger purpose for their work, but it provided a piece to that puzzle and a taste of what can be done to connect young people with their communities. It gave them the positive push they needed to reach a level of excellence with their work that wouldn’t have happened otherwise. It let those few brave readers be heard, which is something that all people greatly desire and rarely get. And while creating opportunities for my students to have those authentic audiences may be a challenge, I’m not going to stop working towards making that happen for them. The smiles on their faces, the buy-in towards their learning, the sense of purpose, and the connection with others are all too important.
Shelby Denhof is navigating her second year as an educator. She teaches 7th grade English as well as an intervention course for struggling readers in Rockford, Michigan. Embedded in her teaching is her passion for literacy, service learning, and fostering character strengths in her students. When she’s not in the classroom, she spends her time cooking, petting every dog she sees, listening to history podcasts, and going camping and hiking.
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