Writing Instruction: Different Expectations and the Lasting Impacts

"It appears that children don't have to be taught language the way they are taught to button a shirt. But what about written language? -Freeman & Freeman Essential Linguistics: What You Need to Know to Teach Reading, ESL, Spelling, Phonics, Grammar 

Before I begin reflecting on the type of writing instruction I received in school, I want to be transparent that without my father and the support he gave me as a writer, I do not believe that I would be the writer I am today. My father was a middle school language arts and reading teacher, and he ensured that I was prepared as both a strong reader and writer starting as early as I can remember. His success in preparing me to be a strong reader and writer was by simply allowing me to read and write as much as I wanted to, and learn the skills as they came to me. This belief is known as aquisition learning.

This philosophy is reflected in the text by Freeman & Freeman. Both suggest that there are two types of writing: The learning view and the acquisition view. By simply looking at the definitions provided in the texts Essential Linguistics: What You Need to Know to Teach, I began to wonder, "Can you really teach one way of writing, without the other?"

"From a learning point of view, writing, like reading, must be taught directly. From an acquisition perspective, writing, like speaking, is a form of output that reflects the language competence an individual has acquired. Teachers from both points of view include writing in their language arts curriculum, but several aspects of their instruction are different," (Freeman & Freeman, 29.) 

However, once I began to dive into the differences in teaching writing with these different methods, I began to reflect not only on the writing instruction I received, but the differences in writing instruction I have provided in both lower and higher performing schools. In my experience, it seems that there is not only difference in the types of instruction provided under these two writing philosophies, but a very obvious difference in the groups of students who are learning writing versus acquiring writing.

Looking back to my earlier years, 

I believe that my writing instruction reflected more of what was described in the traditional classroom, rather than the process classroom. Teachers modeled the most basic skills: handwriting, spelling, punctuation, and organization, especially in elementary school. I remember an emphasis on handwriting and spelling, with an immense amount of feedback surrounding my handwriting and whether or not I knew how to spell the weekly list of words. These skills carried on throughout middle school, with the culminating research paper in 8th grade with the focus on our ability to write a five page essay. The topic was of our choice, but we were mainly assessed on the steps leading up to our paper, and the skills, rather than content, that made up our final paper. However, it was during this research paper, that the writers workshop began to be used more, and I really remember giving my fellow students feedback for the first time.

Once I entered High School, teachers of all subject areas, focused less on the form of our writing, and more on our content. We were allowed to choose the way we wrote to share our ideas, and began to support our fellow classmates with feedback as a way to improve our writing. I remember our language arts  teachers would pull us for individual and small group instruction on skills, rather than receiving whole group writing lessons. I also remember loving language arts classes more in high school because we got to read more, and then write about what we had read. It seemed to make a lot more sense, and it taught me how to become a better writer through reading great literary works.

Now in my own classroom...

I have had the opportunity to teach in both a low performing and high performing school, and it is very obvious that there is a difference in the type of writing instruction that is expected for students. In the lower performing school, the learning view was a school wide expectation for students. Programs like Step-Up to Writing were expected, and we were always discussing how we could teach our students to write in order to do well in district interim and state tests. We gave monthly timed writing pieces in Social Studies classrooms as a way to monitor growth, but students never received feedback on their writing, we always chose the topics that they wrote to so we could compare students across the board on their writing skills. When I graded papers, the students handwriting was always very legible and neat, but I was always so bogged down in spelling and mechanics, that it was often difficult to give feedback on their content.  Our school believed it was important that EVERY piece of writing was corrected so students could see how to "improve," their writing. Thinking back on this process, I wonder what gains students would have had on writing, if we had focused on a writers workshop philosophy. 

Now that I am at a school that is high performing and students are at grade level with their reading and writing, it is amazing the amount of freedom and trust given to with their writing. Students handwriting is mostly terrible, but they are given time to write freely in all of their classes, and express themselves in a variety of writing styles. Peer editing is encouraged, and students are given time to revise, redo, and turn in writing until they are proud of the pieces they have completed. In language arts classes, students write weekly pieces based on the type of writing the authors in their novels are using. An example being, when students read Of Mice in Men, students wrote their own narratives that were either fiction or non-fiction.  

It is this ability to trust students and allow them to simply write which I believe allows students to be successful. With my own experience as a student and now in my classroom, I believe the best way to teach writing, especially at the secondary level, is through the beliefs of acquisition. 

Source: Freeman, D., & Freeman, Y. (2004). Written and Second Language Acquisition. In Essential linguistics: What you need to know to teach reading, ESL, spelling, phonics, and grammar. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.