Readings 3/15/2012 - Effective Writing

Readings: Beers et al Chapter 13
                 Gallagher 2
                 Edelesky "Theory, Politics, Hope and Action"

‘Talking is a hydrant in the yard and writing is a faucet upstairs in the house. Opening the first takes the pressure off the second’ Robert Frost

    As I read the assigned chapters for this weeks readings I found that there were many similarities in theories ad strategies that were presented by the different authors as well as those presented by the NCTE.

    The theory and strategy that resonated with me was based on the concept of viewing writing as thinking as well as the fact that there was no one process that defined the way all writers write. These resonated with me because I view writing in regards to purpose and so thought that all writing required thinking. I also find that I generally developed a rubric for writing based on the traits of writing and tried to find ways to make it fit.

    Some of the specific theories and strategies that the authors recommended included the theory that people learn to write by writing as well as the fact that students have to do a lot of writing to accomplish the best writing. Some of the theories/strategies that I found that I could relate to were the ones that stated that students should write for real reasons and real audiences, that writers, need, choice, time and models of good writing as well as constructive feedback and most important that writers needed places to collect ideas, an example of which was writing portfolios.

 I related to the latter strategies and theories mentioned because I have tried them and find that they do work.

    The NCTE Beliefs about Teaching Writing support most of these theories and strategies in that they state, as do the authors in the both texts that everyone has the capacity to write if they are thought how to do so. It is also stated across all three texts that people learn to write by writing. It is also stated that that writing is a tool for thinking that should grow out of many different purposes.

    Writing is a process and teachers need to understand that to be able to teach it effectively. We can work with teachers to implement these ideas in their classrooms by teaching them the process, letting them have the experiences that the students will be expected to have and evaluate the effectiveness of such experiences for themselves as well as how they think their students would respond to those experiences.

    We can also work with teachers to implement this process by having them evaluate the effectiveness of the writing they teach as well as providing the tools with witch to effectively implement a writing program in their classrooms. We can also do this by providing access to research about the validity of writing based programs that work, as well as have teachers observe other teachers who effectively implement writing programs in their classrooms.

It is also important to note that teachers who are expected to teach writing, like teachers who are expected to teach any content area must be taught the content first. We need to provide adequate teacher training programs that teach pre-service teachers the skills we expect them to teach our kids.