Because Writing Matters (Journal 5)

This is a book that I wish I'd read earlier in my teaching career.  It's also a book that I wish my administrators and district leaders would read right now.  My district is currently in a crisis of sorts.  We have not made AYP in a while (at least not for our economically disadvantaged sub-populations), and I predict that things are getting worse for our general population.  As much as the English Department has tried to remedy this situation: we've led school-wide in-service training sessions about web-quests, graphic organizers, constructed responses, and reading across the curriculum, there has been precious little change in the statistics.  As the research continually stressed in Because Writing Matters, the literacy crisis is not the sole purview of the English Department; other departments share responsibility, and some departments have really been trying to help out.  Because of the importance of writing in building content area knowledge, demonstrating student knowledge, encouraging higher order critical thinking skills, and improving language and communication, I can only hope that more of my colleagues will jump on the writing bandwagon.  As I read this text, it became increasingly clear to me that “students need to write more across all content areas and that schools need to expand their writing curricula to involve students in a range of writing tasks” (6). 

In order for this to happen, though, there needs to be more effort expended in developing a common language, developing common rubrics, and setting common expectations across content areas.  In fact, “improving writing requires a sustained schoolwide effort” (18).  Furthermore, students (and faculty) need to be taught to read as writers and write as readers.  Teachers can't teach what they don't know, and if educators do not develop their own writing lives, how can they possibly be expected to train students in the craft of writing?  In Chapter 6, one principal was described as asking his staff to participate in writing prompts at faculty meetings.  That is something that I cannot imagine happening at my school; our faculty meetings are gruff and rushed affairs where faculty is spoken at rather than spoken with.  There is no real dialogue – unless you consider the half-hearted question asking if anyone has anything else to add, and the expectation is that no one really does. 

As an English teacher, this text restated a lot of information I already knew, maxims that govern my own curriculum development and classroom practice.  For example, it is startlingly clear that “writing is the most visible expression not only of what [my] students know but also of how well they have learned it” (11).  My students write on a daily basis, whether in their response journals, for entrance or exit slips, for the classroom blog, or for homework assignments or processed papers.  I feel like I have a grasp of what competence in writing means and looks like, but there is a lack of common vocabulary and expectations – sometimes even within my department, and definitely across other departments.  For example, in the past few years, junior teachers in English and in Social Studies have assigned annotated bibliographies, but there has been no coordination to ensure common expectations or guidelines in both departments – which can only create confusion for our students.  We have made a move toward a writing handbook, but it is still in its earliest stages – a draft has been circulated among English teachers.  It is a beginning, though, which will hopefully lead to concerted positive change.

As the text points out, though, there can be no change without administrative support.  And as we balance research about best practice, we also need to consider community expectations.  This is true because “people who cannot write and communicate clearly will not be hired and are unlikely to last long enough to be considered for promotion” (17).  As an educator, I clearly see the veracity of this statement, but sometimes it is hard to keep this fact from sounding like a mere platitude to my students.  Partly this is because there is little opportunity because of district and school guidelines for students to write for authentic audiences.

While we can affect change within our school, and perhaps within our district, affecting change at the state level is much more difficult.  As I read sections of this text dealing with the limitations of standardized tests, I became even more concerned (if that's even possible) about our state test: the SAT.  Perhaps the new Smarter Balanced assessments will be an improvement, but I think that remains to be seen.