Spilling Ink: Section 26

It is June 29th, and we are closing in on the last sections of Spilling Ink! Where has this month gone??? 

Section 26 of Spilling Ink tries to explain the ever-elusive concept of voice. The idea of a writer's voice is  hard to explain and even more difficult to understand, especially for elementary students. When we teach about voice, we usually use a few guiding questions: 

1.  Does your writing sound like YOU?
2.  Does your writing make the reader FEEL something?

If the answer to both questions is yes, then we say that a piece has voice.  Anne Mazer delves a little deeper in this section, guiding students in finding their individual writing voice. She admits that it takes time, lots of trial and error, and a fair amount of courage. 

As writing teachers, we can help our students find their voice by flooding our classrooms with mentor texts, allowing them to experiment, and giving them lots of feedback.  Who knows?  Along the way we might even discover our own writer's voice...