I have learned through my reading how other teachers have found ways to connect to their students' world through writing.  My students' world is quite different from my own, and as Mary Mercer Krogness notes about her own inner-city students, "...these young people's lives rivaled those of people living in a war zone"(6).  I recognize that my students deal with violence and fear on a daily basis that I have never experienced in my lifetime.  Even in the writing club with my motivated students, I have had students share details of a night spent sleeping on the floor because of bullets flying outside their windows.  Through their writing, I have learned about their world, and I have come to understand the fears that cause many of these bright, motivated students to worry that they will not live long enough to realize their dreams.
     In his book Will My Name Be Shouted Out? Stephen O'Connor's lyrical prose drew me into his classroom experiences with junior high students in New York City.  In his introduction he states that his students were "...twelve, thirteen, and fourteen when I knew them, children on the verge of a very hard adulthood..."  My students are also in this age group, and many of them seem as if they are already living a hard adulthood.  O'Connor goes on to discuss the statistical fact that the upcoming years for his students will be "the most dangerous time of their lives, the time when they would be most likely to become criminals or victims, when they would be most likely to make big mistakes that they might never outgrow" (11).  Even with the motivated students who are in my writing club, I see the results of the dangerous world in which they live.  Some of them are depressed, worried that they may never live to reach the goals they have set for themselves.  Many of them have lost young family members and friends to the violence of the streets.  I have reflected often on Krogness' statement that the more she got to know her students, "the more worried I became about doing justice to their dreams--but the more excited I got about trying" (14).  I know just how she feels.  I want to make a difference in their lives, to give them hope for a better life.
     One way of helping students is to try to give them opportunities to examine their lives through writing.   O'Connor uses writing to help his students confront the violent surroundings in which they live.  Throughout his book, his students powerful writings resound with a familiar chord.  His book abounds with stories about murders, drug deals, vicious fights, and gunshots in the night.  I've heard it all as my students read to me from their writings about life in their world;  how similar the world of O'Connor's students and my students are is amazing in a sad way.  So many young people are growing up in surroundings that most of us would not care to imagine.  When my students sit in a circle in the writing club, they are enthusiastic adolescent writers.  However, when they leave the safety of my room, they are heading to the dangerous streets where dreams die everyday.
     I see my writing club as a way to help my students see ways to live their dreams.  By taking their writing seriously; giving them outlets for publishing; sharing their work with an audience;
giving them opportunities to learn how to write better; and giving them chances to collaborate with other writers, I am trying to expand their view of what they can do with their writing.