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Many years ago, when I was a young English teacher, I attended a workshop that I still often think about today, the Writing and Thinking Conference at Bard College. One writing exercise has stuck with me in particular all these years later: the Text Explosion. There are various ways to do this exercise; but basically, you ask the class to look closely at one passage of text, each student underlines one or more words/phrases that stand out to them, they do a free-write responding to that particular word/phrase, and then we read the passage aloud together pausing for each person to share their free-write when the word/phrase they underlined has been read aloud. In this way, the quotation becomes almost like a chorus of voices responding to it in real time; the text “explodes” to include everyone’s ideas, analyses, and free associations. 

Last school year, when working with a terrific team to refresh the way we talk about our school , once again, I found myself taking part in a type of text explosion exercise. We met with groups of students, parents, alums, and faculty/staff, which led to collaborating through many ideas and iterations of concepts and messages, ultimately landing on a main theme: Where the first draft of extraordinary is written. For each word in this main sentence, the team underlined it and elaborated – maybe even free associated – on its meaning to give the whole thing a more expanded meaning. Here is a visual:

Someone once said to me that girls’ schools are bathed in language. I think this is very true. No matter what subject or discipline, language and verbal processing is everywhere at all times. Alums tell us all the time that they were truly surprised and deeply appreciative when they went to college and found that their writing was so much stronger than most of their classmates and that this advantage was absolutely from all of the practice and skill development they received at Westridge – a daily practice that they didn’t even really know they were getting in such abundance.

Because I enjoy being bathed in language (girls’ school alum!) and in the spirit of text explosions, I spent some time recently for fun diving more deeply into the “explosion” of our new main message. I went down a bit of a rabbit hole of free association (specifically the words and concepts of “first draft” and “extraordinary”) and thinking about how they connect to Westridge. Thank you in advance for indulging me as I share some of this!

Free association on “first draft”: 

What is the origin of the word “draft”? (That is, what is the first draft of the word “draft”?) From internet research, the word appears to go back to Middle English and is also related to Old English in the word dragan which means pull, draw, or drag. This makes sense as developed into the more modern context related to drawing up plans, sketches – or even to pulling heavy things, or drinking liquids, or drafting for sports teams or the military. So in terms of the connotation of drawing up plans, that could be a preliminary piece of writing, a first try – either getting words down on the page without much form or getting a plan/outline down before refining it with words. The draft isn’t polished, it isn’t finished, it is a work in progress in what might be a long process of development. And that’s how it should be – no one is asking or expecting a first draft to be polished, finished, or without many attempts that may or may not turn out to be mistakes or rewards. In addition, a first draft is different from a second or third draft – it is the earliest “pulling” or “drawing” up of ideas. It is young. I was especially taken by one connotation having to do with a mode on a printer, “Draft mode,” where the print comes out in its most general form, but it is not yet pixelated. 

It is easy to see how this all connects to Westridge. That as a school so connected to writing and creation, literally, students are creating first drafts of things every day – of essays, of drawings, of rocket or robot designs; but that they too are first drafts as students, as scholars, as human beings. Childhood at Westridge should be a first draft. Temporally, it is step one of the rest of their lives as thinkers and creators and leaders. It isn’t about perfection, or end products, or risk-free-ness. It’s about mistake-making for growth, some real messiness, trying things and experimenting, formation and development, patience. Taking chances in a space and place of fertile ground for development. Striving and rising. Changing and being changed. The developmental arc of each child is long and no two are exactly alike. Much like a first draft, students are young, and their pixelation is continually forming. As any of our student Writing Center Fellows will tell you, the writing process itself can be a form of personal agency, and it helps you develop your thoughts, your feelings, your points of view. A Westridge education does too.

Childhood at Westridge should be a first draft. Temporally, it is step one of the rest of their lives as thinkers and creators and leaders. It isn’t about perfection, or end products, or risk-free-ness. It’s about mistake-making for growth, some real messiness, trying things and experimenting, formation and development, patience. Taking chances in a space and place of fertile ground for development. Striving and rising. Changing and being changed.

Free association on “extraordinary”:

To be honest, the word “extraordinary” is not one I had thought about a lot before; but the more that I explore and play with it, the more I see how much it applies to our Westridge context. The word has its roots in the Latin extra-ordinem which means outside of the normal course of events. Going beyond the usual or customary thing. Some other meanings I found are “specially convened” (as in of a meeting); unexpected; and as a noun, “an item in a company’s accounts not arising from its normal activities.” It can also mean something that makes a memorable or vivid impression.

What is a girls’ school if not “specially convened”? If not, “outside of the normal course of events”? Our Westridge graduates have not “risen from normal activities” – they have risen from a specially convened space that is specifically and intentionally designed for them, and that they, in turn – just by being here – change and design for the next generation of girls and women who come to Westridge. The “ordinary course of events” would be a coed school experience that, sadly, still so often replicates the gender inequities of the real world – with fewer girls in advanced STEM classes, with fewer girls in leadership – exceptions to the rule, rather than the norm in our girls’ school space. It is indeed extraordinary (in both the grandest and the most literal sense, then) to normalize all of this for them as girls/young women. It is self-concept shaping, life-changing stuff. Extra-ordinem indeed. 

And Westridge alums do live extraordinary lives. An alum from the ’80s wrote to me recently and said that she has reconnected with some of her Westridge peers and what she has noticed is the strength and resilience of these women, and she attributes that to Westridge. Alums that I meet tell me amazing stories of their extraordinary professional and personal lives. A few have wondered aloud with me what their lives would have been had they not come to Westridge – if they had not been given the chance to go beyond the usual or customary “real world” in these foundational years. As I’ve noted before, they use the word “trajectory” to point back to Westridge as the foundation of this extraordinariness, of this life path. They tell me that it is because of Westridge that their lives have been what they have been. That they have been as memorable and vivid. It is true – our students’ lives are arising from something beyond the customary, from a place that has been and will continue to be specially designed and convened. What an incredible gift.

Beyond this free association and text explosion, I must admit that perhaps my favorite line in our new messaging is this one: Waiting for the world to catch up since 1913. Westridge as a first draft in its early days was already extraordinary and visionary. And while we are indeed still waiting for the world to catch up, Westridge is not only forward-thinking but a catalyst for accelerating this change, with extraordinary graduates entering the world, changing and progressing it each and every year. You better believe that if we get this slogan on a tote bag any time soon, I will be the first to tote it around! 
 

ABOUT THE AUTHOR:

Andrea Kassar is the head of Westridge School. She has more than 20 years’ experience as an administrator and teacher at girls’ schools in New York, and is a graduate of Brearley, a K-12 girls’ school in Manhattan. She holds a B.A. in English and psychology from the University of Chicago, an M.A. in English and comparative literature from Columbia University, and an M.A. in psychology from the New School for Social Research. She is also the parent of three children—Lucy '25, Billy, and Cecily.