Teaching Black Teens to Write the Books They Read

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, Hall’s publishing plans were upended. Before schools closed in March, the majority of Hall’s 11th graders wanted to participate; by the time See Me with Clarity went to print in May, all of her juniors had withdrawn. Completing the project was suddenly too much to juggle for the older teens, who had more online assignments and out-of-school obligations to navigate. Hall regrets the missed opportunity, but she feels proud that her ninth graders came together and published at such a difficult time.

“I think that it really gives students a purpose for learning,” says Whitney Ward Birenbaum, explaining the power of publishing. Birenbaum, who was a middle-school language-arts and humanities teacher in Baltimore for 13 years, is now the executive director of CHARM: Voices of Baltimore Youth. The nonprofit, which she co-founded in 2018, publishes a student-produced literary-arts magazine and sponsors Saturday workshops where young writers can develop their skills. “Our society sends a lot of messages that [high schoolers] are too young and their voices don’t matter,” she told me. “Giving them an audience is empowering.”

She witnessed this in 2019 while coaching Hall’s young authors to publication. Working with students in small groups, she offered tailored feedback on their personal essays and was “humbled and blown away” by the depth and complexity. “One boy wrote about living through a fire and having to move to a new place, and talked about how [through] that experience … he saw the social injustices of housing inequality in Baltimore,” she recounted. “To see a young person write so personally and painfully, and also think about the societal impact, was really incredible.”

Student publishing spans a wide range of in-school and out-of-school activities, such as writing for yearbooks and journals; entering writing contests; posting student work in online spaces; placing op-eds and letters to the editor in local newspapers; and, as Hall has shown, producing bound and printed books. This last form isn’t as common—especially not to the degree Hall has embraced it, publishing more than 100 student authors. What the options have in common is that they shift the focus from students as passive absorbers of information to students as producers of content and knowledge—and transform the role of school in their lives.

“School [becomes] a place where you make something … not just where you consume what other people have made,” says Tanya Baker, director of national programs for the National Writing Project, a group working to improve the teaching of writing in schools. Baker emphasizes that far too much of student writing is driven by assessments, leaving too few opportunities for young people to be inventive. “Teachers get a lot of training in teaching young people, ‘Write so I know that you understood the book,’ rather than, ‘Write to create something new in the world.’”

Reports on student publishing have confirmed Baker’s observations. One study of sixth-grade language-arts students found that publishing was an effective method of connecting students to the community—and a means to positively affect their attitudes toward writing: “Characteristically unmotivated and motivated students alike were proud to have their pieces on display at a popular community bookstore,” the authors found. It “motivated students to work hard, and generated a deeper appreciation for writing in general.”

Those findings dovetail with Hall’s experience in the classroom. One memory stands out above all others. Philip (whose real name is not being used, to protect his privacy) was a football player and big man on campus. “He was one of those guys that walks down the hall and everyone high-fives him,” she recalled. He also struggled with reading and writing. Hall worked with Philip throughout the school year, and soon, she said, he was determined to be part of the book project: “I told him, ‘You know it’s going to be a lot of writing and a lot of work. Not that you can’t do it, but you can’t get frustrated and shut down when I ask you to do it again.’ And he looked at me with such fierceness and said, ‘Yes, I’m going to do this!’”

The day of the book signing, Philip sat at the table with his co-authors. Hall still remembers his words: “I was told by my dad that I needed to make sure I played football, because I wasn’t good for anything but sports,” Philip said, with tears welling up in his eyes. “My father didn’t believe in me,” he continued, but “thanks to Mrs. Hall, I’m a published author now, and my dad can’t even say that!” It was a goose-bumps moment that left Hall overcome with emotion. “It kind of blew my mind … this boy wrote three stories, but he’s constantly getting phone calls home about what he can’t do in education, and what support he needs.”

Hall’s blueprint for student success was recognized across the city when she was named Baltimore City Schools Teacher of the Year in 2018. And she has emerged as a sought-after authority on youth voice in literacy, serving on CHARM’s advisory board and presenting at the annual flagship conference of the National Council of Teachers of English. She savors her memories of seeing Black youth in Baltimore pick up entrepreneurial skills by selling self-published books for a profit—and she still feels satisfied knowing she helped release their greatness into the world.

“It gave the students a fulfillment that they don’t often get in school,” Hall said. “I used to tell them, ‘You haven’t even graduated yet, but when you walk across the stage, you will walk across as a published author.’ That’s impactful for a community of kids that people tend to give up on.”

This article was adapted from Melinda Anderson’s new book, Becoming a Teacher.

This article is part of our project “On Teaching,” which is supported by grants from the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, the Spencer Foundation, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Panta Rhea Foundation.