Student Voices: Lessons on writing, collaboration, and empathy

One student’s experience cowriting and editing a book helped him see himself and his classmates differently.

Note: The author of this article is coauthor of 30 Days to Empathy (2013), a book written with his teacher and 29 classmates in Honors Interdisciplinary Writing class at Chicago’s Whitney Young Magnet High School. Teacher Jay C. Rehak said he had mulled over the idea for a class-written novel for years before springing it on his students in fall 2012. Each student wrote a chapter about a day in the life of fictionalized character Jake Holomann that was based in part on their own lives. The book is available through Amazon.com.

Rehak wrote the book’s first and last chapters. “I was trying to get them first of all to learn the power of self-expression. Then I was trying to get them to understand the power of collaboration; I was trying to improve their writing skills,” Rehak said of the book project that won a Book of the Year Award from the Chicago Writers Association. “It was an exercise in empathy, trying to get them to have a sense of each other.”

Student author Zachary Deitz’s chapter, “Mr. Popular,” confronted the notion of how quiet and brainy Jake Holomann might feel in his shoes, a popular student on the swim team who also plays saxophone in the school band. Here, Zach tells about his involvement in the total project.

When first asked to write my chapter for 30 Days to Empathy, I was not sure how to approach it. My effort level is different for different tasks I am given to do for school. When I understood the gravity and possible effect this book could have on my academic career, my life, and others, I kicked myself into high gear to finish my chapter and to make it the best it could be.

In writing this book, I learned a lot about myself and being part of a cohesive effort. In terms of learning about myself, I came to realize that I can achieve whatever I put my mind forth into doing. I also learned a lot about how to be part of a team effort. There were times when we didn’t think that the book would get published due to the fact that some people didn’t finish writing their chapters or doing their editing work as fast as everyone else. In the real world, this is how the inner-workings of anything goes, and, in that regard, it gave me a fast forward preview of my future.

One of the most interesting parts of writing a class-sourced novel is to see the different ways that everyone approaches the project. My style of writing is different from the style of writing of the kid sitting next to me, so to see it being made into one cohesive thing is really cool. I chose to write my specific chapter about a regular school day, but some of my peers chose to do weekend days or special school days. To see the contrast between my regular school day chapter and the chapter of someone writing about their weekend is what makes this project so great. The fact that two different tales can all fit together and make one big story is one reason I enjoyed writing this class-sourced novel so much during the school year.

Writing this book brought me closer to my classmates and made me more comfortable with myself.

The peer review was one of the most effective parts of the process. Having everyone read each chapter before they were put into the collective book was one of the most important things we did. One mind is not as great as the collective conscious, and I think that is where Mr. Rehak led us in the right direction. One might think that writing a singular chapter in a book with 32 chapters in total, that some might go unseen or looked over more than others, but the fact that we all had the same input in everything made everything more fair. The process Mr. Rehak employed to lead us in doing the book is part of what made the entire thing so hard. It is hard to write from the heart, but it is made easier when your peers are doing it. In my chapter I shared some intricacies of my everyday life that I normally wouldn’t share with the everyday person.

If I could do the entire process over again, I would. I didn’t know how our book would eventually become something noteworthy. I believed the entire time that the book could ascend to the ranks of being award worthy and being recognized, but I didn’t understand the gravity of what I was a part of when I started and finished my chapter. If I could have, I would have added more intrigue and risqué overtones in my chapter to make it more interesting for the teenage readers who are reading it. I think that is an example of how I lacked empathy, in a sense, when I started writing this book. By the time I was done with the entire thing, I learned more about how to think about others first.

I was surprised to learn that no one had previously written a class-sourced novel as a school English class. That made our book that much cooler as it was unique. To be successful these days, you have to do something that is original and that holds water to whoever reads it, and I think we achieved this with 30 Days to Empathy. I am happy to be one of the authors of this book, and it is good to know that we made a difference with the book.

Lastly, it taught me something about empathy. It might be cliché to say, but you really do gain a sense of empathy from reading this book. When someone gets mad at you for no reason, you can’t judge them as being short-tempered, as you do not know what they have gone through the previous night and day. My point being that it is not always clear who your peers are, and what everyday struggles they endure. I learned about the struggles my friends have, from dealing with their parents to the troubles they have at school. Some feel like outcasts and need to muster courage to come to school every day. It gave me insight into their lives that I did not have previously, which was one of the biggest rewards of writing this book with them.

Overall, I had a great time writing this book. It is not often that this gets to happen at the same time in a school setting, but Mr. Rehak did a great job facilitating and organizing the project. It was one of my most memorable moments of high school, and I think I speak for myself and my peers when I say we are honored to receive the Chicago Writers Association Award. That award, recently given to us for the Best Nontraditional Novel of 2013, was icing on the cake.

CITATION: Deitz, Z. (2014). STUDENT VOICES: Lessons on writing, collaboration, and empathy. Phi Delta Kappan, 95 (6), 72-73.