This past weekend we were lucky to have Monday off due to the Patriots Day Holiday and the weather was great. I was able to get outside and start working in my garden. I raked oak leaves, cut away last summer’s plant stalks, and picked up dead branches. I like having a garden for all the usual reasons—the flowers, it’s nice to grow things, a garden makes my yard look better. But having a garden also helps me to better understand the writing process and teaching. Now I know this isn’t anything new. The garden as a writing metaphor is common, and the garden as a teaching metaphor is, well, cliche. But, I’m talking about something different here.
First I need to make two things clear.
1. I love to write. Really—I’m not just saying this because I’m a writing teacher. I love to write. I love working on a piece of writing—working on sentences, working out the structure, revising. I love being absorbed in a writing project. My favorite part of the summer is that each morning after I walk my dogs by the lake, I can go into my study and work out a narrative problem in my novel.
2. I don’t really like working in my garden. I know I should work in my garden. I know I should be out there everyday weeding, moving plants around, cutting things back, watering, fertilizing, dead-heading, spreading mulch. I know my garden would look better if I did all these things, but I tend to procrastinate and avoid getting out there to do what needs to be done. I’m always happy once I’ve made myself weed because the garden does look better, but I must admit working in the garden is something I usually have to force myself to do.
So what I’ve come to realize is that I like having a garden more than I like working in the garden. It is this realization that helps me better understand writing and my teaching.
I think it’s safe to say that most people don’t like writing and most of these people are in my required first-year writing class. Granted I’ll get a student or two who loves writing, but most of the students in my class don’t like to write. I hope this doesn’t sounds too critical or mean. But it’s a fact and I know it’s a fact because most of my students are up front about how they feel about writing, reading and English classes in general. “I never liked English classes,” they will say. “I don’t like writing and I don’t like to read,” they will confess to me in my office. “No offensive, Professor Woods, but I dreaded taking this class.” I like that my students feel they can be honest with me.
I think I’m like most people. Because I love something it can be difficult for me to imagine that other people don’t like what I love. I’m still shocked when people (students and non-students) tell me they don’t like to read. Really? I think to myself. How can anyone really not like to read? My students are also very willing to point this out. “You don’t understand,” they will say.“You’ve always been a good writer because you love to write.” Well they’re wrong about the part that I’ve always been a good writer, but they’re right that I have always loved writing. It’s because I love to write that I work at it and want to get better.
But I think they are right that I always don’t quite understand why they don’t spend hours and hours thinking about their essays. It is gardening that helps me understand what they are saying. Just like I want to have a garden, but not too keen on the process of getting a beautiful garden, my students want to have an essay, but aren’t too keen on the process of writing it. To put it simply, I like having gardened; my students like having written.