KAREN KUFAHL

Step into Karen Kufahl's classroom. It is a realm that fosters great writing. Mrs. Kufahl expects her students to write daily and coaches them toward clarity of expression. Through her dedication it is no wonder that her students become exceptional writers and together celebrate their successes

Originally, Karen did not imagine herself a writing teacher. But she has been involved with Birchwood School almost from the beginning—first as a parent shepherding her four children through the Birchwood program, then as a teacher's aide, and for the last ten years as a language arts teacher. She still remembers the day when Helene Debelak approached her to ask if she would be interested in pursuing a college degree and then coming back to Birchwood. It was the right time. With her children mostly grown, Karen took the opportunity to complete her degree at Baldwin-Wallace College in 2000. She began teaching language arts and social studies the next fall to Birchwood's third and fourth graders. 

Success soon followed. Under her dedicated instruction, Birchwood's creative and imaginative young writers blossomed. Daily practice. Weekly writing goals. Efforts to publish and enter contests. “Each fall I enter students in a several contests,” Kufahl says. “After many or even a few of the students see their work accepted for publication, the whole class realizes success is possible, and they are eager to write. I never hear groans when I announce that we will be writing for a contest.” This year Kufahl's students swept the fall Cricket story-writing contest, earning first, second, and third places, as well as three Honorable Mention awards. In addition, 96% of her third and fourth graders' pieces were accepted for publication in Creative Communications fall essay-writing contest.  Several of her fifth graders reached the final rounds in the Letters About Literature contest sponsored by the Smithsonian Institution, and one earned fourth place in the state of Ohio, a coveted honor for which 913 writers at this level had vied.         

Kufahl is enthusiastic about the Birchwood writing curriculum, Learning to Write by Writing because it matches so perfectly her own journey into writing. “I am delighted that I can teach children to write using a program that mirrors my own experience as a writer,” she notes. “I learned to write by writing every day—for church publications, to keep in touch with my family, and as the one-and-only office staff for my husband's art business. I even had one job in which I wrote every day for three hours.” Soon Kufahl found that writing for all kinds of purposes came quite easily. Although she admits that writing will always be a challenging art, she stresses that it doesn't have to be the torturous struggle that so many students experience in high school and college because they never wrote much when they were younger. As Kufahl labors to help young learners touch the joy of writing, she feels lucky to be their writing teacher since it gives her a window into her students' hearts as they pour forth their thoughts, dreams, frustrations, concerns, and joys onto paper.