Writing Is Hard, Especially if No One Ever Taught You How

The act of writing won’t solve anyone’s problems. But doing it well can throw light into the dark rooms of human experience. Or at least it can help you get into college and make your way in the world.

Tim Whitaker knows the power of words. A lifelong writer, he spent 30 years in journalism, long serving as editor of Philadelphia Weekly. Solid thinking and good writing, he saw firsthand, can effect change. And yet many people don’t know how to express themselves effectively, because no one ever showed them how.

After leaving journalism a decade ago, Whitaker founded Mighty Writers, a nonprofit organization that teaches young people in Philadelphia to think and write clearly. The group, which serves many low-income students, offers free daily after-school sessions, night and weekend classes, and college-essay writing workshops (in English and Spanish).

Last year more than 3,000 students took part. One was Tre Jenkins, a once-homeless student who credits Mighty Writers for his recent acceptance to Harvard University.

Whatever young people’s aspirations, Whitaker believes, the ability to communicate well can help them succeed in school, college, and careers. And honing those skills can help build confidence. He spoke with The Chronicle about helping students find a voice.

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The schools your students attend have cut the arts, library offerings, you name it. How does that affect them?

From what I can tell, in most cases, math, science, and standardized tests are the priorities. Writing instruction is very random. A teacher along the way who cares about writing might be the only exposure they’ve had to it. So, for the most part, these kids are coming in with very few writing skills. Yet they’re really good storytellers, because they see so much stuff, on street corners and playgrounds. They often have a razor-sharp sense of humor. They know how to tell a story verbally, but writing is all new to them.

What kinds of stories do they tell?

With high-school students, racism is a theme that runs through a lot of their writing. The unfairness of the school system. They’ll write about why they are going to schools that are broken down and have high teacher turnover and asbestos problems while the suburban schools are beautiful and the gyms are great.

One of our locations is El Futuro, where students are from Mexican communities. There are a number of workshops where kids use writing to tell a story of how their families came to this country. Almost all these kids are distressed because of the situation their families are in. The kids are documented, but some of their parents are not. They know that if somebody knocks on the door, they should not open it. But in getting them to tell those stories of how and why their families came here, the kids become really proud of their family’s journey.

Why is writing it down so powerful?

Kids, like grown-ups, walk around with all these emotions and feelings, but they often don’t take the time to really meditate on them. When they have to formulate those thoughts in words, it’s a task that shapes them. We’ve seen their self-esteem rise, their personalities change. A lot of kids come in a bit edgy, or shy and isolated, but then become more self-assured.

We typically steer away from really intimate writing, where they feel forced to reveal family situations in ways they might not be comfortable doing. They’re going through so many changes already. But sometimes something deeply personal will surface naturally in their writings.

One young woman who came into our program suffers from depression. She was able to write about it so clearly, so poignantly, that after she shared it with some other kids, her personality underwent a big change. It had a dramatic effect on how she felt about herself. She was almost proud of the fact that she suffers from this really painful disease, that she could fight it and get on the other side of it.

William Zinsser, a god of writing instruction, once wrote that “writing is thinking on paper.” How do you teach that to underserved students?

We are trying to get them to understand that to get into a good high school, college, or job, you have to be able to write a clear message or a clear email. And the only way to do that is to first think clearly. Our instructors are taught to get the kids to converse with each other about the topic at hand before beginning to write.

Most people start writing before thinking. They’re just tapping away, and usually what comes out is kind of a mess. We get them to articulate what they’re thinking.

What’s the key to drawing them out?

It starts with having topics that connect with kids directly. We have comic-book workshops, girl-power workshops, one about the Black Panthers. We center a lot of our workshops around issues that kids care about, where they have strong opinions already and are willing to verbalize them. Sometimes it’s a little fractured, because they haven’t taken the time think clearly, to process it.

Many of them hate Trump. So we’ll challenge them to fine-tune why they dislike his policies or the way he leads.

It’s pretty easy, in neighborhoods like ours, to find issues kids care about. Economic disadvantage. Challenges related to police in the community. Football players taking a knee during the national anthem.

But in the age of texting, aren’t complete sentences and well-constructed paragraphs totally passé?

We make it clear that revision is god. That everything they do is a first draft. We never put down texting, but we say, “OK, you want to go to college? You’re going to have to be able to express that on paper, clearly.” The only way to do that is to do a draft, revise it, and work with somebody so that by the time you submit it, it’s polished. We make no bones about the fact that writing is hard work.

Helping them verbalize their thoughts gets them halfway there. The other half is the discipline of putting it on paper, revising it. Our job is to give them feedback, get them to hang with it. We reward that by making them heroes around the center for a day or two, reminding them publicly how great their essay was. We often hear one kid say to another, “That’s a mighty writer right there.” It’s a badge of honor.

Can writing instruction help increase college access for underserved students?

I don’t think there’s one solution. We see kids with various levels of ability, and some are more economically disadvantaged than others. All these factors matter.

With high-school-age kids, we focus on how important their admissions essay is, because they’re competing with kids who went to really good schools. Their essay has to tell a story that reveals something about themselves, something they overcame. It can be the thing that gets you into college when other things like SAT scores and grades are only mediocre. They really respond to that.

What’s a lesson you’ve learned from your experiences with Mighty Writers?

The biggest thing is how much parents in the neighborhoods we serve care about their kids’ education. There’s a myth that they don’t care, and that that’s why there are these educational problems. The parents I deal with will corral me on the sidewalk and ask about their kids: “How’s he doing?” “How’s she doing?” “Is college a possibility?” The parents are economically challenged for myriad reasons, but that doesn’t mean they don’t care.

We’ve all got a story. Why is writing such a big part of yours?

It saved me, actually. I wasn’t that great a student, but I could always write. As a high-school kid, even through college, I was rebellious, unfocused, and I had a hard time marching to whatever drummer was playing. Writing always brought me back home. I could sit for five, six, seven hours and crash on something until I was pleased with it. That’s what got me through.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Eric Hoover writes about admissions trends, enrollment-management challenges, and the meaning of Animal House, among other issues. He’s on Twitter @erichoov, and his email address is eric.hoover@chronicle.com.