Rationale, Parts Two and Following

It was in reading Ryan Adney's blog that I started to grok that typewriters in a classroom, even in 2015, even alongside tablets and cloud storage, could work.

Mr. Adney teaches English in Phoenix, Arizona, and he has been documenting his Classroom Typewriter Project for several years. One of the most inspiring posts on his blog is a brief summary of his project's results. To make it even more brief, I'll just say the following:  it works.

This was enough to convince me to bring in a typewriter.

At that point, we owned two typewriters:  a 1956 Royal Aristocrat and a 1979-or-very-early-'80s Underwood 319. I decided to try the Underwood for two reasons.

1. As a newer machine, it looks more familiar to people who grew up with computers. It is relatively small, and the body is made of hard plastic. While it certainly looks "old," it does not necessarily look "old-fashioned." In other words, I thought it might seem less alien to my students.

2. The bigger reason, or more immediate, was weight. As a smaller, later, plastic-er machine, the Underwood weighs significantly less than the Royal.

The reaction was incredible. In one class, only one student was interested in typing his paragraph. In the other five classes, several people wanted to put their names in the hat.

As I was explaining the basics of the machine to one lucky winner, the student decided it was a bit much. He asked if he could pass it on to someone else for the day, and he chose the classmate who was excitedly listening to the instructions I was giving. This other student wrote his paragraph on the typewriter. This may not seem notable until you know that this other student is often loath to do any writing. On the following day, the student wanted to finish typing his paragraph. As I was helping him load his page into the carriage, I saw something that is often missing from drafts (no matter how much I encourage, insist, explain, and beg)--proofreading marks. I complimented the student on the effort he was putting in, and he said (paraphrased), "Yeah, I just wanted to write something really good, since I'm using this typewriter!"

I should mention that I'm not using an exclamation point there to express my excitement (though I had plenty in the moment). This student was excited about writing. I'd tried many approaches over the course of the year (and will try those and many more in the coming year), but this simple, old, obsolete machine was the spark that got this student fired up about writing. About his own writing.

 That's worth the price of admission, right there.