Let Your Students Be Writers!

"Remedial writing classes at the collegiate level have exploded because students are graduating high school [as] novice writers."

Wow. That quote hits me hard. Unfortunately, I am not surprised.

I often hear intermediate and high-school level teachers speak to their students' lack of skill in writing, surprised by their limited knowledge of or ability in areas such as sentence structure, elaboration and text structure and organization. They question why students are not more adept at writing and are unsure of how to intervene when such a higher level of product is expected compared to what students seem capable of producing.

I have also seen over and over again classrooms of students and teachers frustrated during writing time. They are both unsure of what to do and are not at all enjoying this part of the day.

The opening quote, by Kimberly Rotter is taken from one of my recent podcast episodes, in which Ms. Rotter and I discuss the current state of student writing and writing instruction in our country. She goes on to say, "The reality is that students who start in those remedial courses have a much lower graduation rate."

Ms. Rotter also shared with me that her first job as a professor is to “sell writing” to her students, because they hate writing and do not feel at all confident in their ability.

Our conversation was an important one, and only confirmed my beliefs about what our young students really need when it comes to writing.

Why don't our students enjoy writing?

Many culprits come to mind when thinking of what causes this lack of interest in writing as well as students' skill deficits. They include standardized testing, lack of teacher training and leadership training, low-quality resources or lack of time.

More than anything though, I believe it is because students as early as Kindergarten are not able to write in authentic ways, and therefore their confidence in writing and motivation to write are suppressed.

In the classrooms I have visited, In the dozens of classrooms in which I have worked in a variety of capacities throughout my 18 years in education, the course of action for teachers is commonly a narrow focus on one of the areas mentioned above such as sentence structure and elaboration, thinking that one area is the sole need of the student in the quest of increasing their ability to write. Worksheets or tasks that target the area of concern are completed as a whole group or assigned to students to complete independently, with little to no instruction provided.

In most of these classrooms, very similar activities have occurred for writing instruction in general. I have seen; daily journal prompts, class writing pieces, sentence writing, whole class graphic organizers, and teacher-directed writing.

Most often, activities like daily journal prompts or sentence writing were the ONLY activities used for writing. Furthermore, even when some form of independent writing was occurring, often, it was very teacher-driven, with teachers choosing topics, correcting all parts of the writing pieces, and telling students exactly what to write when drafting or revising.

Not only are sentence writing and daily prompts not authentic writing opportunities, but the methods and practices used such as listed above are not allowing students to be authentic writers. They are not able to make their own choices about what they write or their own writing process.

It's not just transcription.

The fact is that there are numerous aspects of being a writer that need to be valued in order for students to be successful. Generating ideas, connecting reading and writing, being engaged and confident, and understanding genre are all vital areas in which students need exposure, practice, and teaching. Furthermore, they need to feel like writers.

According to a 2019 article, Changing How Writing Is Taught, "one’s beliefs about writing can foster or hinder writing in various ways. Such beliefs influence whether one engages in writing, how much effort is committed...They include judgments about the value and utility of writing, the attractiveness of writing as an activity, why one engages in writing, one’s competence as a writer, and why one is or is not successful when writing. They also include beliefs about one’s identity as a writer."

Imagine only being able to write or talk about what someone asks of you, or always being limited to a certain structure. When our thoughts and ideas are restricted, what happens to us? What would that do to our beliefs about our identity as writers. Why would it be dissimilar for our students?

What I have rarely seen over the years was choice, real-world writing products, varied writing opportunities, planners or methods of planning that fit the needs or processes of the student, conversations with students about their plans, or significant time for independent writing.

For students to become successful writers, it is necessary for them to know that they ARE writers, right now, and that we value their choices and acknowledge their abilities. They need to be exposed to all types of writing and provided opportunities to write in ways that show the significance writing has to their lives. Instead of stepping in to have students get something on the page when they are having difficulty getting started, we need to provide them with strategies for generating an idea and finding the best way to make a plan. Teachers should be aware of what students are doing and can do as writers before they decide what we expect them to accomplish. Writing products that help students share what they are interested in sharing should be incorporated into writing units. Only after these ideas are in place will students be motivated to write and learn to grow in skill as writers.

Empowering Writers

I do not believe it difficult for schools and teachers to create classrooms full of writers who enjoy writing and continue to progress in skill and confidence. It begins with one idea-LET THEM WRITE.

Let them write what they are interested in writing about! Let them write at their level of ability. Let them write at their pace. Let them write pieces that model real-world writing. ?Let them show you what they know and how they feel about themselves as writers.

You will learn so much from your student writers. That knowledge will assist you in identifying how to move them forward, and your writers will learn that THEY ARE WRITERS who are capable of being successful!

*Graham, S. (2019). Changing How Writing Is Taught. Review of Research in Education, 43(1), 277–303. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X18821125