How does one motivate a student to write? What I took away from Chapter 10 in Best Practices is that students will be motivated to write if the writing is meaningful and interesting to them, but that’s not quite all. There must also be a real reason to write whether it’s to solve a problem, to think through a theory or idea or to communicate with the public through a published piece of writing (even if that publication is only read within the class or school.)

In addition, students must feel competent or they will not want to write. This reminds me of how many people feel about math. Maybe it’s because I tend to be in classes with English majors, but I’m very used to hearing people say, “I hate Math. I’m terrible at it.” It’s a way to shut down and protect yourself from struggling and failing at something. But many people do the same thing with writing. It’s important to make sure students understand that everyone struggles with writing—even the greatest writers.

But this also means making them aware that writing is hard work but that nothing worthwhile in life comes easily. (That right there may be the single most important thing any of us can teach our students, I think.) On page 219 the writers remind us that, “When learning to view writing as a meaningful activity, students should also be helped to recognize and face its complexity.”

There was a wonderful example of this in Grammar to Enhance and Enrich Writing by Constance Weaver, which I read for my grammar class last fall in which a beautiful piece of student writing was used to start the chapter. It was about the student’s grandmother passing away. (Damned if I can find it in the book right now.) Later in the chapter, the original draft was shown. It was riddled with grammatical mistakes and punctuation issues. It was the barest bones of what it was to become through revision. I think it would be helpful to show “before and after” writing from previous students who are willing to share their work so that students can see that no one produces a beautiful piece of writing without many revisions.

I was intrigued by the notion of collaborative writing, because I don’t have much experience with that. But it builds on another element, which is the social aspect of writing and the fact that writing isn’t only about expressing emotion, which I think is sometimes the only form that writing takes in school. You spill your guts about something you’re very passionate about. There’s nothing wrong with that, but there are so many other ways that writing can be done, such as “playing with writing,” which is discussed on page 212.

This leads to something that seems to be becoming a theme. Writing needs to happen in every subject area. It must be integrated into everything that students learn. In Chapter 12 Dolores Perin discusses writing to learn as an essential element in adolescent writing. This really made me think about how stunted a person’s entire academic life can be if they aren’t able to translate their thoughts and ideas into written form. If they can’t summarize or ask and answer their own questions, than how can students form theories and test them in science or grasp complicated mathematical ideas? I wrote in the margin of page 257 under Recommendation 11: Writing to Learn, “Again integration. Science teacher should be reporting to English teacher about kids’ progress.” It seems essential to me that teachers in the middle and high school level communicate with each other about kids’ progress, not just to monitor their reading and writing proficiency but many other factors as well, not the least of which is emotional well-being. But I’m getting a bit off topic there. Perin says it best, “Not only should content-area teachers teach writing skills, but language arts and literacy specialists should teach writing using tasks, vocabulary, and reading material drawn directly from discipline courses.” Again, this is a whole school challenge. The question is, what can teachers do when they don’t have the support of the whole school? Or better yet, how do they fight to change the culture of the school from the inside and get more teachers working together?

The final realization that Chapter 12 brought to bear for me is that every student is an individual and different approaches must be tried for different students. Hence the eleven recommendations—and probably many more—must be in your bag of tricks at all times.

What is most interesting about the  strategies and research laid out in Chapters 1 and 2 of Best Practices in Writing Instruction is how intuitive it all seems. It makes logical sense that students who write often about topics that engage them and receive regular support, instruction and guidance from their teachers would become better writers than those who don’t practice and don’t receive guidance from teachers.

It seems from this reading that we know how to improve kids’ writing. Write often, give feedback and instruction and use the plan, draft, revise method. The larger challenge appears to be incorporating these methods on a school-wide basis. The key to true writing improvement, according to Chapter One, is that writing instruction is consistently good in every grade. This seems counter to most of our experiences as students. More than anything else, the story of American education is about that one great teacher—the one that made a difference. But the model described in Chapter One of Best Practices is about expanding that great experience to a student’s entire educational career. And it makes sense. We all have great memories of that “one great teacher.” But was that really enough? Maybe it was for some of us, depending on our family situation or what additional things we had going for us in addition to that inspirational teacher. But a lot of kids don’t have much else. They need consistency. Not one great year and that’s it.

That said, I loved these chapters because they included clear, research-driven methods that really work. If kids write often, if they receive instruction and feedback from teachers as well as peers, if their work is celebrated by being displayed throughout the classroom and the school, if they plan, draft and revise, if they are allowed to make mistakes when those mistakes are leading them to higher-level writing, if they are allowed to write about what interests them, they are much more likely to improve as writers.

The challenge for teachers, I would imagine, is to find the time to write more and to get the support of the entire school. How else can you integrate writing into all subjects—at least in the middle and high-school levels—without the support of all teachers in all subject areas?

My favorite quote from Chapter 2 is in the conclusion. “Writing is such a complex task that it cannot be taught once and for all—that is, we are all apprentices in learning to write and in writing to learn.” The key to successfully implementing all of the strategies in Chapter 2 is letting the student drive the process. Let them make mistakes if those mistakes are leading them to experiment with more complicated grammatical structures. Let them reject revision suggestions if they feel strongly about it. Make it personal and make it engaging.

Which, of course, brings us to the Yancey piece. The most engaging writing that many students do is texting, Facebook messages and the like. This is the toughest idea for me, because I don’t think I’ve wrapped my head around how to incorporate all of the new media options out there into the classroom. It doesn’t seem like anyone really has yet, but it’s a fascinating discussion. It’s beneficial to be reminded that the role of writing has been evolving for as long as there has been a written alphabet. So it’s only natural that we struggle with how to define, embrace and teach the new media writing that kids participate in nowadays. But it is essential that we strive to find ways to embrace it. I’m less optimistic than the author that young people will find ways to turn this new community-driven communication into something positive. That’s not because I don’t have faith in young people. It’s because I don’t put too much faith in anyone right about now. But I would be thrilled to be proven wrong, kids.

Just finished reading Ralph Fletcher’s book, A Writer’s Notebook: Unlocking the Writer Within You and I’ve already poured quite a bit out into my own writer’s notebook. It feels good. For a long time I’ve been purposely not writing because I don’t want to face so many of my thoughts. But it’s not just that. Somehow I started feeling like anything that came out of me and onto the page had to be perfection on arrival. I know better than that intellectually, but emotionally I clung to that hang up. Fletcher’s book really helped me accept how closed off I’ve become. I wasn’t always like this, but I’d say it’s been a good ten years.

What I liked best about Fletcher’s book is that there is no judgement. If doesn’t matter how good, bad or silly your ideas are. Writing is a process and most of what comes out might not be “good.” But what does good mean anyway? If it came from you, it’s good, whether it becomes part of a finished piece of writing is sort of secondary. You can’t ever make a finished piece of writing without being open to whatever thoughts and ideas are flying around in your head. I love that Fletcher shares some ideas for stories he’s written in his own writer’s notebook in their most primitive form. I’m thinking specifically of his idea for a story about a place where words grow like plants. He admits that the idea might be silly, but I think that’s the point. A lot of ideas sound silly in their infancy. We’re all silly in our infancy. But if you aren’t brave enough to be silly, corny, stupid, embarrassed, even ashamed, then how will you ever be creative? I have to learn to be open to this. And I think that will be the theme of this blog: Learning to overcome fear. I am terrified of failure, and I have to get over it—here and now. Writers fail. And teachers fail. Every lesson can’t be successful. I can’t go into teaching thinking every day will be magical. And if I’m not willing to fail, I’m never going to be any good at this. By this I mean teaching, writing and life in general.

So thanks Ralph Fletcher. I will continue keeping my writer’s notebook. And I will keep your book close by to remind me that being fearless means dropping the pretense and letting yourself be silly sometimes.