Speaking to English educators gathered at the annual SDCTE Conference Banquet in Mitchell, March 23,
Paul Higbee said, "There is no higher compliment for an author than to have a teacher say her
students have made a connection to your writing." Higbee went on to say that this connection is only being made
because a good teacher helped those students make the connection.
Higbee told his audience that writers are always asked, "What writers influenced you?" He said, however, that "What teachers influenced you?" is an easier question to answer and just as important. Higbee mentioned four South Dakota teachers who influenced him to become a writer. Wally Green showed him how "full and rich a book can be" when Higbee's seventh grade class read Tom Sawyer. Jessie Lacheski, Higbee's eighth grade teacher, "read my writing like a person who reads for pleasure," and she told him that the good characters he developed gave her pleasure. In ninth grade, Higbee was urged by teacher Flora Abraham to read Steinbeck's Travels With Charley. Higbee said that book changed his life because shortly after he had connected with Steinbeck's account of driving across North Dakota and Montana, Steinbeck died. Journalism teacher Elsie Haddock, now 93 years old, would circle words in ninth grader Higbee's writing, saying, "You've got to find just the right word."
Years have passed since these teachers influenced Higbee to become a writer, and technology may now make us question the survivability of the written word. Higbee believes words will survive because "the most polished, most powerful, most exact form of language is the written word. " Language makes our connections to each other "intimate and significant. " Regional writers, such as Higbee, "reach readers on a more intimate level, a more personal connection, closer to home" than do authors who write about places with which we are less familiar. This one-on-one connection, Higbee says, is what makes reading worthwhile for the reader, and worthwhile as well for the author.
Paul
Higbee also presented a concurrent session on Saturday morning, March 24,
"A Writer's Life," in which he shared some strategies he has used
successfully with student writers. [Click here
to view "Higbee Shares Successful Writing Strategies."]