Share Your Writing Life

Before we can teach writing effectively, we must see ourselves as writers.  Routman offers the idea of writing as a staff to practice the structure of the optimal learning model and to go through the process of what we want our students to do.  We can also think about all of the different writing we do every day and reflect on this process so we can share it with our students.  I chuckled when Routman describes the times she wrote letters with her class - as they were surprised to learn they were really going to mail them.  It’s important for us to bring in our own writing and create authentic opportunities for them to write for a real purpose or audience.  Those are the times I remember writing in school – when it was meaningful to me.  It’s reassuring to think that if our students see the real process of us thinking and struggling a little, then that will help them to be more at ease and have a little more confidence to start writing.

Start with Celebration

Like Routman suggests, we need to bring the joy back to writing.  To do this, we should steer away from the nitty-gritty of correctness, and focus on what is working in content..even if it only a sentence! It can be difficult to find the “good” in some writing, but we can fish for more by asking questions and showing that we are excited and interested in what they are writing.  If we put away the red ink pen and take a more positive affirmative approach, we can set the tone and find the writer in every student. We should set goals with our students and boost their confidence to take risks. We have to show students it can be fun to write and their writing has much more purpose than to do well on the state assessment or to summarize the science textbook.  Routman suggests that when we model, we shouldn’t be writing any more than what we expect the students to be writing.  This makes sense! We should focus on our ideas rather than explaining conventions and spelling.  To get students to give more through their writing, we have to take the initiative to tell a story that is animated, full of life, and meaningful to us. 

Simplify the Teaching of Writing

In the first chapter of Writing Essentials, Routman describes the focus and frustration of some schools in finding the right “program” to teach writing to increase their students’ test scores.  Routman points out that we need to be approaching this problem as becoming better teachers of writing than finding a program.  We are so focused on the latest program, that we forget to dig more in depth of what we already know about ourselves as writers and what we like about writing.  Writer’s Workshop is one of the most effective structures I have learned about for helping students develop their quality of writing and increase their enjoyment as writers. Writer’s workshop isn’t really a program, but a structure that can help teachers provide the ongoing feedback and support our students need to become better writers.  We need to step away from the “hubbub” of the latest program and focus on what is really important when teaching writing. Just like with reading, it’s crucial for teachers to model and express their joy for writing.  We must teach them to write with purpose (preferably with choice in a topic that is meaningful to them) and for the intended audience (real audiences are ideal).  When we teach the process, students should hear our inner thoughts of how we think when we write.  I got the most from my teachers when I got to hear how they solved a problem or thought aloud to go through a process. We have to explicitly teach the process of thinking before we expect them to write with quality – quality certainly shouldn’t be expected to come from a writing template.