Writing from Within Workbook - Softcover

Educated at the University of Michigan with an MA in English literature and art history, Bernard Selling taught English and humanities at the USAF Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo. After returning to civilian life, he received an MA in film and theater from UCLA, then made short films for the following decade during which he also studied acting, directing, and writing with Lee Strasberg and Jack Garfein. He has produced films from stories by major American writers and produced and directed several documentaries.
A creative writing teacher by profession, Selling’s first book, Writing from Within: A Unique Guide to Writing Your Life Stories, was published by Hunter House in 1988 and has sold over 65,000 copies and is now in its third edition. He is also the author of In Your Own Voice, a students' guide to developing writing techniques and skills. Subsequent books include Character Consciousness, The Art of Seeing, as well as two novels of intrigue set in the Italian Renaissance, The Duke’s Musician and Predators.
Bernard Selling has taught "Writing From Within" workshops to teachers, writers, older adults, adults in recovery and those seeking greater self-awareness. He has also taught composition and literature at Loyola Marymount University, West Los Angeles College, and UCLA Extension. He lectures in the United States and Europe, and has taught his writing techniques to teachers along the Eastern Seaboard from New Hampshire and New York to Florida, Louisiana and Texas. He has also worked with a German Educational Foundation: the Eckenroth Foundation which nurtures young German writing talent. Selling lives in Topanga Canyon, CA.

From the Preface

In today’s fast-paced, post-industrial world, the demands of quality jobs and careers require that the user of the English language be able to think clearly, understand and communicate points of view other than his or her own and do so using language that is both persuasive and to the point.

In this environment, many learners of English get left behind. Perhaps they are from low-performing, inner-city schools; perhaps their parents do not speak English all that well; perhaps they are poorly motivated and feel that the world of the classroom has little to do with their tense, problem-filled worlds.

Most of us who have tackled these problems have found that an effective literacy program to help these learners, specifically the writing component, must provide simple yet effective ways of teaching students skills. At the same time such a program must arouse the students’ interest in writing while motivating them to open their minds to the possibilities of mastering writing in the English language.

What kind of writing motivates and teaches writing skills? Well, most people, especially youngsters in at risk programs, love to tell stories about their own experiences. Thus an effective, motivating writing program must involve storytelling. With this in mind, author Bernard Selling created his writing from within writing program.

Everyone, even very young students (5th and 6th graders) or those with limited English skills (ESL students), can learn to write well using the building blocks of storytelling narrative, dialogue and inner thoughts and feelings upon which this method is based.

What about analytical skills, essay writing and the like? Aren’t these important? Indeed they are. However, the mistake we educators have made in the past is that we have asked students to undertake complex writing tasks way too early in the process of developing writing skills. Effective essay writing requires that the students display skills in engaging’ the reader even as they evidence the analytical skills required of all incoming college students.

Common sense suggests that we simplify the process: teach students to engage the reader (and themselves) in the writing process first, and then tend to the acquisition of analytical skills.

What are these engagement’ skills that students needs to learn? Effective stories generally engage the reader by using narrative, dialogue and inner thoughts and feelings. Experience shows us that even students with minimal language skills love to tell stories. If we as teachers can show students how to translate that love of storytelling onto the written page, then we are well on our way to providing students with the skills and motivation they need to be successful writers.

Beyond that, storytelling skills can lead students in two important directions: awareness of the self’ in their own stories (character) and awareness of relationships between and among other people.

When one writes a story about himself/herself, the story becomes a mirror of one’s character qualities. We as teachers need to guide students into an understanding of how to use the story as a mirror to his or her character qualities.

Moreover, students from less than privileged circumstances often find themselves at the mercy of a world they didn’t make long before they understand what relationships are about. As educators, our obligation to our students is to begin to teach the process of understanding (and writing about) relationships early in their educations.

This matrix of writing skills and life understanding will provide the student with a basis for thinking objectively and analytically about the world of ideas, the world of opposing points of view and the search for truth’ in art, in literature and in life.

All of these skills make up the writing from within’ method of writing life stories as contained in the author’s text Writing from Within (1988, 1990, 1998, 2004, 2012), his manual for teachers In Your Own Voice (1993, 2004), and in a series of workbooks entitled Life Story Writing Workbooks (2010).

Life Story Writing: Workbook I Storytelling teaches students the storytelling skills that will enable them to make clear their points of view about life experiences as well as expressing an awareness of how they feel as the experience takes place.

Life Story Writing: Workbook II A Guide to Personal, Creative and Analytical Writing demonstrates how acquiring storytelling skills creates a viable transition to analytical and creative writing.

Life Story Writing Workbook III Self-Assessment/Relationship helps students understand themselves by looking at their character qualities as they exist in the mirror of the story they have just written. As students become familiar with character qualities, they then have an opportunity to look at two factors that make up relationships of all kinds: power and love.

Taken together, the completion of these workbooks will 1) engender in students a love of writing and self-expression; 2) create an understanding of what makes a story effective and 3) enable students to apply the principles of storytelling to writing analytical essays; 4) usher students into the world of the examined’ life, and 5) help students grasp the competing forces that make relationships either successful or difficult.

The following is what those who have used the writing from within’ method say about the workbooks and the teacher training workshops given by the author.

One of the most significant uses of the first workbook occurred in 2006 when ABC Learn, a highly effective literacy program in the Los Angeles area, began to explore the many ways in which the workbook could be used.

ABC Learn has had a great deal of success in teaching literacy to at-risk
youths and others who have minimal English skills. Probably fifty percent of the success we have had in the past few years can be attributed to Bernard Selling’s writing method. His Life Story Writing (Storytelling) Workbook I and the workshops he has given our teachers embrace the best method for teaching writing that I have encountered. This workbook provides our tutors and students with a great number of writing skills, while encouraging students to express deeply imbedded feelings about their life experiences.” Debra Greenfield, CEO of ABC Learn. (Please see Oprah Winfrey’s website for Precious” for more about ABC Learn)

The following is a comment about the second workbook as viewed by a longtime user of the writing from within method of writing.

Bernard Selling’s impressive new Life Story Writing: Self-awareness/Relationship Workbook III guides us on our way to an examined life. It enhances our understanding of how we are with those we love and don't love along this path and assists us to know ourselves better while developing skills to express that knowledge in written words as we search our deep well of experience for clues to who we are. Addressing many levels of self discovery and creative thinking and written in a clear and interesting style, the workbook will be extremely useful with secondary and college students. Adults will love it, too. I especially found the thought-provoking questions invaluable. We are all engaged in the endless search for identity. Who am I, where am I going and with whom... it never stops. Can one ever know too much about oneself?" Paula Diggs M.A. English, M.A. School Counseling, M.S. Family Therapy. California State University Northridge, Dept of Education (Retired), Special Education Counselor (retired)
From Chapter 1: My Earliest Memory Present Tense Writing

Writing stories is not difficult if you follow a plan. In this chapter and the ones that follow, you will be given a plan to follow a step-by-step plan that will make writing stories much easier for you.

Let’s begin by writing about the first thing you remember in your life, your earliest recollection. Go ahead and write it down now. It may be only a half a page long. That’s fine. Length is not important.

[Space left to write]

New Step #1 Converting past tense writing to present tense
Now let’s look at your story and make one change: rewrite the story converting every verb from past tense to present tense.

[Space left to write]

What is the difference between the two versions of the story? Hopefully, you see that much more of the story has become available to you, that is to say, your ability to recall the past is working better and better.

Now, one thing we have to look at. In some cases, our memory bank is protecting us against something quite painful to recollect. If this is the case, we may need to be satisfied with a draft of the story that is a little more distant and written in the past tense. We can always begin the present tense rewriting process anytime we wish, with any story we select.

Topics that may trigger your earliest memories:

1. My first experience with a birth in the family
2. My first experience with a death in the family
3. My first experience being all alone without Mommy or Daddy
4. My first experience in the hospital tonsils out/other illness
5. My first experience riding on a train, boat, bus or airplane
6. My most vivid memories of Mom and Dad
7. My first day in school
8. My most embarrassing moment in school
9. My first time being really afraid
10. My most vivid recollection of Grandpa/Grandma

Here’s an example:

First Memory
by Steve Dix
I am four years old and I am learning to tie my shoe. I keep trying. I have finally done it. Now, I can go tell my mom I’ve learned to tie my shoe.

Things to notice:

Step 1. Be sure to write in the first person singular (not we but I).
Step 2. We are trying to help you sound like you were the age at which the event happened. This is so the reader will believe what you are telling him better. If, in the earlier example, Steve Dix had said, I couldn’t have been more than four years old when I first tried to tie my shoes by myself,” the writing would not have sounded like a four-year-old speaking, would it?