16 W Anne Elrod Whitney In this article, the author proposes that authenticity requires actions related to four areas: authentic process, authentic genre, authentic audience, and authentic teachers and students. Keeping It Real: Valuing Authenticity in the Writing Classroom English Journal 106.6 (2017): 16–21 very real to kids. Students at least begin school with a sense that everything is real and worthwhile. They don’t ask, at frst, whether the assignment is for a grade; they don’t roll their eyes if we ask them to make observations as scientists or craft masterpieces as artists. And then, a few years later, the spell is broken. Where does that sense of reality go? Too often school glosses over what is most real and im- mediate, such as students’ day-to-day experiences and concerns, their hopes and fears, their relation- ships with one another and with their families and communities, and the powerful relationships they have—or at least can have—with us. Instead, we focus on the writing skills in a disconnected way, having them write “for practice” about topics that are safe, easy, and distant. Committing to Authenticity as Practice Most of us know what writing feels like when it is really authentic—when it is useful, important, or necessary to get a job done. Do our students know this? Or do they just write because it’s an assign- ment, the same way they do practice problems on a worksheet? As teachers, we prize authentic writ- ing opportunities for students, but what does that really look like in practice? How can we structure authentic experiences for student writers, that they might discover writing’s power for themselves in the here and now? Brené Brown characterizes authenticity as “cultivating the courage to be imperfect” (50). Defned this way, being authentic means not only doing things that are real, and not only seeing what e all crave authenticity. Our meta- phors reveal our desire for authen- ticity in our relationships with others: “Look behind the mask.” “Get to the heart of the matter.” “Go beneath the surface.” Whether it’s in writing or simply in liv- ing, authenticity means not pretending. It means contending honestly. Teachers of writing strive for authenticity. When we ask students to write, we want it to be for authentic purposes. When we engage students in writing processes, we want those to be authen- tic processes. When we ask students to compose a particular kind of text, we want those texts to be authentic genres refecting authentic writing sit- uations in which students might fnd themselves. When we develop audiences for our students, we want those to be authentic audiences, real readers who can provide authentic responses to the work. And in our relationships with students, too, we value authenticity: we want to be ourselves, and we want the students under our care to become their own best selves too. The Challenge of Maintaining Authenticity in School We draw too sharp a line between the world of school and the “real world.” School, the story goes, is where you prepare for what comes afterward; much of what happens in school, in turn, is “just practice.” But even if most of the activities kids are asked to do are oriented toward “preparing” for something outside, the world of school is actually