Philosophy on Writing Instruction

In the Monadnock Regional School District

"It is by means of writing," according to Kenneth Dowst (1980), "that one stands to learn the most, for writing is the form of language-using that is slowest, most deliberate, most accessible, most conveniently manipulable, and most permanent" (p. 71). Dowst's voice is one of many linking writing with learning and higher order thinking and underscoring the importance of using writing as a way of improving learning and thinking in our young people.

The process of writing is recursive; that is to say, although writing is often viewed as moving in stages from prewriting to composing and drafting, from revising to publishing, the stages are not linear. We may find as we are drafting our writing that we need to return to the prewriting stage to brainstorm alternate ideas in order to complete a draft and begin to revise.

The writing that students engage in on a regular basis throughout the year in the Monadnock Regional School District is meaningful, including topics based on their interests. Using a variety of forms and publishing for a number of authentic audiences and purposes, students express their creativity and develop their thinking as they write. In the context of their writing, students also improve their grammar, usage, mechanics, and spelling.

The role of the teacher is multifaceted. As students are taking risks with their writing and refining the style, substance, and form of their writing, the teacher encourages, motivates, and praises students. The final assessment focuses on topic development, organization, details, voice, grammar, usage, and mechanics. They encourage students to self-assess throughout the act of writing and they assess on an ongoing basis, utilizing peer and teacher responses and publishing with appropriate frequency.

As students move through the grades and focus increasingly on content areas, writing can no longer be relegated to that curriculum alone. Teachers must recognize that writing can help students to learn and to think more effectively in all disciplines. In the Monadnock Regional School District curriculum, writing is as appropriate for learning social studies, where students come to a better understanding through writing of the Abenaki tribe in New Hampshire history, as in language arts, or as useful in science as students grasp the topic of weather through the process of writing.

Stephen Tchudi and Joanne Yates (1983) in Teaching Writing in the Content Areas emphasize that writing in all subjects enables students to learn better, to improve their writing, to be more motivated to learn the subject, to improve other language skills, and to think better. The writing that Tchudi and Yates and other researchers and practitioners are calling for, however, may be formal or informal, transactional or expressive, writing to show learning or writing to learn. We often think of academic writing as writing to show learning with the intention of producing a finished document. Although teachers of subjects other than language arts have not traditionally encouraged students to engage in the writing process when requiring academic writing to enable them to better manage their expression of ideas, the writing process is important if students are to think through the writing problems they face as they attempt to write. In addition, we are becoming more aware of the need to enable students to write for audiences other than teachers and for a variety of purposes other than to inform regardless of the subject on which students are writing.

Writing designed to produce a polished document should be required of students in a variety of disciplines, but it is not the only use of writing. Of equal importance in the learning context is what some theorists have described as writing to learn. According to Anne Ruggles Gere (1985) in Roots in the Sawdust: Writing to Learn Across the Disciplines, writing to learn gives students "opportunities to use writing to get course material 'right with themselves' (Britton 1975), to create their own 'webs of meaning' (Vygotsky 1962)." They go on to contrast the two uses of writing: "writing across the curriculum [the more 'formal' type of writing identified above] aims to improve the quality of writing, while writing to learn focuses on better thinking and learning" (p. 5). Writing to learn enhances learning by encouraging students to use learning logs, journals, freewriting, brainstorming, metaphorical questions, and similar activities to enable students to make connections and better understand the material they are learning. Writing across the curriculum may also enhance learning, but its focus is different from writing to learn.

Both kinds of writing are important, even if the emphasis of each is different. Although writing to create a polished product is more designed to improve writing, it should also help students to understand the content they are studying. Writing to learn is more focused on enabling students to engage in divergent thinking to better understand the subject material, but it can also help to improve students' writing as students become more facile with writing as a tool for learning. All writing in the content areas should focus on the content being taught. The improvement of writing is a by-product of that writing.

We may assume that writing throughout the schools will be meaningful as it contributes to the learning process - both to the learning of content and to the ability of students to express themselves. Writing to produce a finished document may be regarded as meaningful if it is written for an appropriate or authentic audience and purpose; writing to learn is meaningful if it is a tool for learning that enables students to think about and understand concepts in the content areas. Students are writing for authentic audiences when they are being asked to write for audiences other than teachers (such as the editor of a local newspaper to persuade or inform her or him and the newspaper's audience about a particular topic).

Janet Emig (1983) suggests that we must "think of the writing in terms of discovery, which is to say the creation must take place between the pen and the paper. . ." We are asking students to discover as they learn through writing. If students are encouraged to write throughout the schools, our schools may develop better thinkers who have greater control of the ideas they are being taught and are able to express those ideas with facility. Few goals for education are more admirable.

References

Dowst, K. (1980). The epistemic approach: Writing, knowing and learning (pp. 65-85). In T. Donovan and

B. McClelland (eds.), Eight approaches to teaching composition. Urbana, Illinois: National Council of

Teachers of English.

Emig, J. (1983). The web of meaning: Essays on writing, teaching, learning, and thinking. Montclair, New

Jersey: Boynton/Cook Publishers.

Gere, A. R. (Ed.). (1985). Roots in the sawdust: Writing to learn across the disciplines. Urbana, Illinois: National

Council of Teachers of English.

Tchudi, S. N., and Yates, J. (1983). Teaching writing in the content areas: Senior high school. Washington,

D.C.: National Education Association.