"Writing in Process"

Book club summary: 

Focus Lessons: How Photography Enhances the Teaching of Writing

Book Summary

            The first portion of Focus Lessons talks about how the writer got involved with photography. Although it touched on how photography is similar to writing, it dove into this more so in the later on parts of the text. On the other hand, there were a few similarities. For one, in both writing pieces and taking stories, it is valuable to make many drafts of your work and to keep perfecting it before you have a quality outcome. The author exclaims, “A learner needs a great deal of volume, quantity, time on task to achieve proficiency” (Fletcher 20). If one wants to perfect a picture, they will need to take numeros takes, move into different lightings, and keep trying to get a masterpiece. For writers, they must try different types of writing styles, think about their audience, and take out or add many little or big details in their work so the text flows well.

            Another idea that Fletcher states is how it is practical to let students undercover the connections in a piece of writing. For example, Fletcher states, “In a stronger piece of writing the significance reveals itself; we find out why the writer chose to write about this” (36). If teachers simply gave the significance of a piece of work to their students, the learners would not gain as much than if they found them on their own. Not only would finding them on their own give them more confidence about themselves, but it also shows good learning strategy skills by using critical thinking and attempting to deconstruct the story.

This text includes a lot of examples, suggestions, and lessons on how writing and photography are connected. Much like photography, writing needs to capture different points of views, backgrounds, and specific details that work together to create a specific moment. As Fletcher states, “writers create mind pictures that allow the reader to see what is going on. A writer must decide: Whom do I want the reader to focus on? What do I want them to see? And who is doing the seeing?” (39). As we write and teach writing, it is crucial that we keep these questions in mind and create pieces that provoke different emotions and responses. The small details are important, but creating a specific moment or experience is what will really stand out to the readers. “One memorable line can redeem an otherwise ordinary piece of writing. It doesn’t have to be exceptional from beginning to end, but there needs to be something strong for the reader to grab onto” (Fletcher 45). Focusing on finding that significant meaning is just one way a person’s writing can be transformed.

Fletcher explains how the process of capturing a photo is similar to the process of writing in terms of allowing freedom to the creator to think outside the box. He states that, “when it comes to writing from photographs, why not find out what students are already doing in this regard, go with that energy, and see if we might redirect their flow?”(92). By this he is saying that teachers need to allow their students to take off with their own ideas and not think so hard about sticking to one format. Students should be reminded to look at things with a different perspective and create multiple drafts to continue revising their work. Fletcher discusses how creating activities that explore students’ observation skills -like captioning a picture- can show them what details are important to focus on leading them to include certain aspects in their writing.

            Through this book we have seen the importance of reflection and looking at your work over and over again to see what can be improved. The book is mainly about teaching through photography but shows connections you can make to writing that help enhance all other learning aspects. These connections do not need to be made directly from photography as they are relevant in many different ways. This book was to make the future writer think about what story they are trying to tell, and how they wish to tell it.

Works Cited

Fletcher, Ralph. Focus Lessons: How Photography Enhances the Teaching of Writing. Portsmouth, NH, Heinemann, 2019