When I was in the classroom, writing seemed easier to teach. Granted, I wasn’t a writing teacher, but I did help students write in the context of science and social studies. Back then, a different approach was used, with all students writing from the same prompt. The final pieces would be slightly different from each other although there were usually plenty of similarities. The focus was more on the writing than the writer.
Let me share an example. I can remember any number of classes writing to a particular prompt right around Thanksgiving. Each student would write from the perspective of a Turkey, noting the reasons why he or she should be pardoned and not eaten on Thanksgiving. While the goal was humor, I can remember several of my colleagues being fatigued after trying to “grade” more than five of these at a time.
It was relatively easy to teach students to have an opening and closing sentence, a couple of metaphors, as well as correct capitalization and punctuation. By the end of the year, the majority of students could write a pretty decent paragraph. But the question remained, were they good writers?
Times have changed. Knowing what I know now, I recognize that writing instruction should have looked different. Now, we focus on the writer, which means that our instruction is never truly done. The writer always has room to improve. While a writer may finish a particular piece of writing, and be satisfied with publishing, he or she always has the opportunity to improve as a writer.
Several years back, I had the opportunity to see Kelly Gallagher speak. If you have not checked out Kelly’s books on reading and writing, you really should. Kelly said something that day that has stuck with me all these years:
“Writing is never done, it is just due.”
As I have learned, writing is not an easy task. It is a complex art form, and writing instruction should not simply seek students who can regurgitate simple writing pieces. Instead, we must focus on writers. We must help students to improve and grow as writers, to give them opportunities for authentic writing. Good writing teachers realize this. They are able to model their own writing process for students, showing them what it looks like to write for a purpose, showing them what it looks like when a writer gets stuck, and showing them how to improve as a writer.
Commit to improving writing instruction. Even if you do not teach writing directly, some of the most important skills we can help students improve are their writing skills. Focus on helping writers to improve.
After all writing is never finished.
Rich (@RACzyz)
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