#2 - Writing Instruction

It’s interesting that while I’ve always wanted to be a great writer and have always enjoyed it, writing has never come close to reading as far as a hobby.  I think that may be because I’ve received far more writing instruction than I have reading instruction – writing is a craft that’s been taught to me over and over in many different ways.  It’s something I won’t ever fully master and perhaps that’s what bothers me and makes me unable to stop doing it all at the same time.  The way writing instruction was approached most often (and most successfully) with me was the acquisition view, approaching writing as a process: prewriting, writing, revising, editing, and publishing.   

Viewing it as a process is empowering because it lets kids gives their writing space to grow, it frees them to take risks, and it gives them the success of publishing and being celebrated for their work.  Process writing just seems more helpful to me because of the variety of feedback a student gets.  Besides, something I’ve had to learn as a teacher is that approaching conventions first in writing rarely works.  Students grasp of conventions seem to ebb and flow as the difficulty of the writing tasks set before them advance.  Students need the freedom to get their ideas out before their conventions are picked apart.  Plus, learning conventions works best in the context of students’ own writing.

The way I do it with my students now is a combination of explicit teaching of the acquisition view and the 6+1 Trait approach. The traits - Ideas/Content, Organization, Word Choice, Voice, Sentence Fluency, Conventions, and Presentation – help students stay focused on certain skills and give them specific growth areas.  Writing is such a huge part of my curriculum, but the way to approach it is all about balance – not letting students get overwhelmed with the enormity of the task of getting their thoughts clearly expressed in a language that is difficult even for native speakers at times.