October 2004
| Volume 62 | Number 2
Writing!
Marge Scherer
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Peter Elbow
The phrase “reading and writing” carries with it the implicit assumption that reading comes first and that writing must follow. Well-known teacher of writing Peter Elbow says otherwise. First graders can “write” all the words they can say, albeit in their own manner and using invented spelling. Encouraging this kind of writing helps children control letters and texts, an understanding that they need ultimately for reading. The word learning itself tends to promote reading over writing because we often assume learning refers to input, not output, that it's a matter of putting other people's ideas inside us. Writing is more caught up with meaning making, however, and encourages students to break out of their characteristically passive stance in school and in learning. “Reading tends to imply ‘Sit still and pay attention,’ whereas writing tends to imply ‘Get in there and do something.’” Elbow also debunks the notion that putting writing first—output before input—will encourage rampant individualism. Reading and writing are joined at the hip. Students will put more care into reading when they have had more of a chance to write.
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Katie Wood Ray
The author asserts that young children demonstrate advanced understandings of writing when teachers invite them to make something with writing instead of just to write, and expose them to many examples of the kinds of publications they could make. She provides examples of books created by two kindergarteners. These students cannot yet read books on their own, but they have been surrounded by picture books read by supportive adults and have learned to “read like writers”—to notice and think about how texts are written. Ray recommends that teachers replace limited writing tasks, such as drawing a picture and writing a sentence underneath, by giving young students a more open-ended and ongoing invitation to make books, reading to them from richly crafted literature in a wide variety of genres, and talking with them about the craft of writing. Part of a theme issue on “Writing!”
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Tom Romano
To become accomplished writers, students must do more than master grammar, spelling, and punctuation. They must develop a voice. The author an experienced writing teacher at both high school and college levels, says that the first step in developing student voice is to free students to write boldly. He describes quickwrites and freewrites, two methods teachers use to “open students' linguistic floodgates.” Strong written voices, says the author, have five qualities in common: they deliver interesting information; they often employ techniques of narrative; they exhibit perceptivity; they offer surprises; and they often demonstrate a sense of humor. The article discusses strategies that writing teachers can use to help their students develop each of these qualities in their writing.
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Cathy Fleischer
Sustained professional development in writing instruction can create successful teachers of writing and successful student writers. Writing instructors face three formidable challenges: uncertainty about their own expertise in writing, lack of knowledge about effective composition, and pressure to teach to the test. The author suggests a structured five-part program for sound professional development. Stage 1 focuses on the teacher as writer; Stage 2, on the teacher as a teacher of writing; Stage 3, on viable strategies for teaching writing; Stage 4, on individual student writers; and Stage 5, on getting teachers to reflect in writing on what they have learned in the process.
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Marilyn Burns
Writing should be an integral part of mathematics instruction, says Burns. It not only helps students think more deeply and clearly about mathematics, but it also provides a valuable tool for teachers to assess student learning. The author describes four kinds of mathematics writing assignments that she has developed in her many years of teaching experience in elementary and middle schools: keeping journals or logs, solving math problems, explaining mathematical ideas, and writing about learning processes. She also recommends classroom strategies for teachers to use in incorporating writing into their math instruction.
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Randy Bomer
Empowering students to use their writing to bring about change in the real world is the ultimate goal of language arts, Bomer claims. He urges teachers to include in their writing curriculums a unit on writing for social change, in which students choose a social issue they hope to change; form groups and “action plans” to work on that issue; and write letters, reports, and press releases addressed to various audiences to bring about social change. Bomer goes through steps required to carry out such a unit and includes examples of effective student writing for social action.
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Kathleen Blake Yancey
Yancey asserts that helping students become skilled with digital and Internet technologies in writing—as well as the traditional “technologies” of pen and paper—is a key part of teaching writing in the 21st century. She argues that an updated writing curriculum must help students develop “textual literacy”—the ability to switch comfortably between print, spoken, visual, and digital processes. She gives examples of teaching practices that aid the transition, particularly in terms of using visual elements creatively. Yancey also gives examples of envisionment, using a technological application for a purpose other than its intended purpose, such as using slide presentation software as a brainstorming and rough drafting aid.
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Laurel Schmidt
Warm-up writing exercises can encourage even the most reluctant writers. The author suggests seven strategies that help get students writing in the primary grades. A technique called Hand Writing produces a wealth of words about a given topic and organizes words in categories that easily translate into sentences and paragraphs. Skinny to Steroids helps students build complex and captivating sentences. Empty Your Head gets ideas out of heads and onto paper. Annotated Drawing and Listen and Draw get visual learners writing, and all young writers may find inspiration in a Special Writer's Hat. Selecting literature to read aloud to students that is rich in visual imagery and emotional content will encourage love of reading and model effective writing.
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Bruce Saddler and Heidi Andrade
Rubrics articulate the expectations for an assignment by listing the criteria and describing levels of quality from excellent to poor. Teachers commonly use rubrics to score and grade student work. These authors advocate the use of instructional rubrics, which play an additional role: to support students in becoming self-regulated writers. Teachers provide instructional rubrics to students before they begin an assignment to help them understand the goals of the task and to guide them in self-directed planning, revising, and editing. The authors describe how students can use instructional rubrics for each of these steps in the writing process, as well as for self-assessment and peer assessment.
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Natalia Perchemlides and Carolyn Coutant
The authors argue that an overemphasis on teacher-assigned letter grades for writing gives students the message that writing is a product rather than a process. A negative result is that pleasing an external evaluator becomes the main goal of writing. They recommend four practices teachers should adopt to help students evaluate and drive their own writing processes: create a classroom environment that deemphasizes grading; let students set their own goals for writing; use commonly agreed on terms for the elements of writing; and give students models of quality writing. Perchemlides and Coutant discuss the Six Traits Writing approach and list sources of models for good writing and organizing papers.
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Larry Lewin
Larry Lewin details steps for guiding students through an unusual assignment—analyzing the writing style of a published author's work and sending a respectful critique directly to the author. Critiquing an author in depth motivates students to both read for comprehension and write with lively purpose, according to Lewin. He outlines three steps: analyzing the author's writing (using tools that student writers also use to dissect their own writing); writing a critique; and attempting a rewrite of the author's material or a study guide that clarifies key points. Specific teaching techniques are included for each step. The article includes samples of students' analyses and descriptions by teachers of how this assignment heightens the confidence of student writers.
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Amy E. Busch and Arnetha F. Ball
Busch and Ball describe the dramatic, positive effect urban writing programs can have on students who balk at writing and are at risk of school failure. They delineate the key characteristics of urban writing programs—a low teacher-student ratio, a focus on student voice and sharing life stories, and a goal to publish student work for real audiences. Two programs operating in the San Francisco area—Youth Speaks and WritersCorps—are described briefly, and a third—Streetside Stories—is profiled in more depth.
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Debbie Rickards and Shirl Hawes
Writing teachers play five important roles. As a model, the teacher lets students observe as he or she selects a topic, plans, writes, revises, and edits. The teacher may also help students learn from models of good writing in children's literature. As a coach, the teacher establishes common goals and activities, builds social bonds, and supports students as they grow in their abilities. As an assessor, the teacher examines each student's writing to determine strengths and areas of need, and fashions instruction accordingly. As a planner, the teacher must balance many factors, such as district and state standards, student skill levels, and classroom organization. As a consultant, the teacher meets with individual students or small groups to give compliments, critique, urge students to apply writing skills and strategies, and nudge students toward deeper understandings of writing techniques. This article demonstrates how these interconnected roles work in the classroom of one teacher.
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Doug Baldwin
In the United States, the increasing emphasis on writing in the curriculum has been accompanied by the rapid growth of writing assessment. Each state's K-12 education system has, or will soon have, some kind of direct writing assessment and accompanying scoring guide. With this significant increase in standardized writing assessment, educators need to learn just how these assessments are scored. The author provides a brief history of U.S. writing assessment; discusses the most common scoring method used today (modified holistic scoring, in which scorers give a score based on their first impression of the overall quality of the writing); describes how technology is changing assessment; and illustrates how educators can apply assessment practices in the classroom. Using assessment as an instructional tool means students can generate their own scoring rubric grounded in their values and critical judgment. Such a process fosters critical thinking and formative self-assessment—abilities that will serve students throughout life.
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Paul Thomas
The SAT's new writing section, which requires students to write brief essays, will have a profound effect on classroom practice because decisions made in the design, implementation, and scoring of standardized commercial tests indirectly dictate curriculum, instruction, and assessment in our schools. Standardized testing risks becoming the curriculum, with teachers teaching to the test, students writing as the SAT mandates, and test scores posing as the single source for awarding credit and judging the quality of schools. The author points out a number of red flags: the narrow focus on grammar instruction, data overload, computers grading written work, and flawed writing prompts. Educators must call for legislation that puts standardized testing in its proper place and they must help implement authentic assessment strategies for writing, define what matters in writing, and support a broad community of expert writing instructors.
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Frank Levy and Richard J. Murnane
Levy and Murnane raise and respond to questions about whether standards-based public education reform truly prepares students for mastery of the occupations set to grow in the United States. They use Bureau of Labor Statistics data to argue that the greatest job growth will be in well-paying occupations requiring high-level skills, not routine service jobs. Expert thinking and complex human communication are the two skills most important in the evolving job market. Schools, Levy and Murnane claim, need to teach in such a way that these skills become second nature to high school graduates, and graduates can apply these skills in college or postsecondary training programs, which mark the path to the up-and-coming occupational fields.
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W. James Popham
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Amy M. Azzam
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Thomas R. Hoerr
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Jess Unger and Steve Fleischman
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Naomi Thiers
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Kevin Fitzgerald
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Naomi Thiers
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