Article by Phoenix writer Michaela Dennean ’25:
“Staring at the blank page before you…”
Above is easily one of the most instantly recognizable lyrics of the 2000s. “Unwritten” by Natasha Bedingfield acted as a powerful ballad for young and old, and it continues to be a hit today, over twenty years later.
Here at Kellenberg, the Senior College Writing classes take part in their own “Unwritten” journeys. College Writing, a class designed by the KMHS English department more than twenty-five years ago, prepares students for the rigors of writing papers of various genres in college. Students learn citations in both the classic MLA style, along with APA for scientific writing. Additionally, they take part in creative writing, crafting personal narratives and writing a scene from a play.
The goal of this course is to eliminate the fear of writing, starting with the ominous blank page. A blank document is the springboard for creativity and ideas, though it often brings about a deep sense of frustration in students. In the College Writing course, students learn that good writing is an ongoing process, rather than just an isolated event. Good writing takes time, patience, and certainly more than one draft. But, it all starts with the first word on a blank page.
The most important thing, as every Kellenberg English teacher loves to emphasize, is to get words down on a page. When revamping the College Writing program, Mr. Flood recreated the course outline to list 140 journal topics, each one giving students a different prompt every day. Six different teachers instruct the journal exercise in the College Writing course. Among them, students are guided to type their journals on their iPad in a google doc or handwrite on the iPad using the Notability app. And, yes, some are still even using marble notebooks.
Mr. Beyrouty, who has been teaching the college writing course for more than two decades, gives his students five minutes to write as much as they can without stopping. Whether the student stays on the topic of the prompt isn’t the important thing; they simply must keep going.
“Thinking is the enemy of writing,” Mr. Beyrouty has instructed his journal writers over the years. The word count goal for the five minute journal exercise is 150, and students aim to reach a higher count each day. If they don’t reach 150 words, they are encouraged to write down the number at the five minute mark, then try to finish at another time. This clears the pathway from the mind to the hand to the page, allowing for more free-flowing ideas.
According to Mr. Flood, “After writing a daily journal for a whole school year, many students in the College Writing program can reach total word counts of more than 25,000 or 30,000 words.”
College Writing has proved to be a success throughout its history, and several students have named it as their favorite Senior course.
“College Writing is a truly inspiring class that has taught me about writing, but more so about how much in my mind is worth writing about,” remarked Senior Myranda Chamorro.
Writing is truly a time to release your inhibitions, just as Bedingfield sings, and feel the sweet symphony of words weaved together just so.
