Rob Lopresti suggested that his friend Nina Mansfield contribute a piece, and here it is. She modestly writes of herself in the third person:

“Nina Mansfield is a Connecticut based writer and teacher. Her fiction has appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine and The Chick Lit Review. Her YA mystery novel Swimming Alone was a quarter-finalist in the 2010 Amazon Breakthrough Novel contest. Her plays have been produced throughout the United States and in Canada, and have been published by Smith and Krause, One Act Play Depot and YouthPlays. Please visit her at ninamansfield.com.”

THOUGHTS ON THE TEACHING OF WRITING

by Nina Mansfield

At the end of every school year, teachers in the high school where I work get a slip of paper in their mailboxes informing them which classes they will be teaching the following year. This year I learned that I am scheduled to teach one section of creative writing in September.

I should be excited, right? After all, I am a writer. Writing is much more than a hobby for me. Writing is a passion. Writing gets me up in the morning—literally. When I write, I feel alive.

In theory, the students who are signed up for the course should be interested in writing. However, this is not always the case. Is it possible to inspire a room full of text-messaging, Facebook-addicted high school students to share my passion?

How?

Will I have them tweet their assignments to me? Will they write entirely in lowercase letters and sprinkle their fiction with emoticons?

Now that the school year has ended, it is time to start preparing for next year. My father-in-law likes to tease me for my summers off—but every teacher I know spends too much of their well-deserved vacation planning for the following year. And that is exactly what I am doing right now.

So, I ask the question again: how the heck am I going to inspire these kids to write—really write? I am not ready to declare the text-message, tweet, or status update as form of literature. And while it might be fun to create short stories using 140 characters or less, my ultimate goal will be to have students write pieces that are somewhat longer. Short stories free of emoticons. Short stories with plots. Short stories with conflict. Short stories that I will actually enjoy reading. For Pete’s sake, I’ll have to grade these things, so I want them to be good!

Is that asking too much? Have I set my standards too high? I refuse to admit defeat before I’ve even tried, so try I will! The first step, of course, will be to inspire them to write. Something. Anything.

But how does one inspire?

We are encouraged as teachers to be reflective. So I will ask myself a question: What inspired me to become a writer?

Well, that one’s easy. Reading.

Long before I knew that I wanted to be a writer, I was reading everything that I could get my hands on.

Books, plenty of books.

But I think it was the short stories I read that eventually transformed me into a writer. I can recall being enthralled by “The Most Dangerous Game.” I was mesmerized and terrified by “The Monkey’s Paw.” I fell in love with the ironic twists of O. Henry long before I fully understood the concept of irony. I credit Roald Dahl’s “Lamb to the Slaughter” for inspiring me to write mystery stories.

Will these same stories inspire my students to write?

I have confidence in these classics. But I also have this crazy idea that maybe I should bring in stories that are a little more modern—stories that were written in the past five, ten or fifteen years.

Fifteen years ago I didn’t have a cell phone. I didn’t use email. Twitter was what birds did.

The world has changed, so why shouldn’t the stories that teachers teach change? I can just picture my students, whose knowledge of forensics is substantially more advanced than mine was at that age, analyzing “Lamb to the Slaughter” with their CSI minds. “Wouldn’t they have found traces of lamb DNA on the victim?” they might ask.

Possibly. But of course when the story was written, DNA analysis didn’t exist.

But it does now.

Yes, I think it will be wise to examine some modern mysteries.

Since today’s students are notorious for being glued to a computer, I think I might start there. At the computer. Homework assignments might require them to visit Mysterical-E or Spintingler or A Twist of Noir. Well, why not? And if my students would prefer to read fantasy or romance or speculative fiction . .  . well, that’s the beauty of the internet. They can find anything they want, and I don’t have to worry about asking my supervisor to buy me more books (especially when school budgets are tighter than ever!)

Perhaps we’ll even compare some of these new-fangled stories with the “classics.” I’ll tell my students to be on the hunt for the classics of the future.

Then I’ll ask them to write the classics of the future.

But I’ll settle for just a good story. They can feel free to make use of all their modern day knowledge. Their stories can incorporate cell phones and references to the internet, and DNA analysis if they so choose.

And heck, just for fun, they can throw in an emoticon or two. As long as they are inspired.