This question has been tumbling around in my mind lately: What is most important when it comes to literacy instruction? It stems from state mandates, district expectations, curriculum guides, and instructional minutes being cut. More importantly, though, I believe it is a question each of us ought to answer.
Years ago I read a book called Choosing to Cheat. The premise of the book is life is filled with “good things” to do, but we can’t do them all. Something will always have to be cheated. The book gave a convincing argument to be purposeful about the areas of life we are going to “cheat,” otherwise our priorities will be overrun by less important parts of life and in the end there will be regrets.
This is true in our writing workshops too. There are lots of great ideas to try and plenty of ways to fill the time. If we don’t know our priorities, the beliefs at our core as writing teachers, then all of these great ideas can get in the way and steal our time.
I think sometimes we make this question more complicated than it needs to be. For me, the most important part of writing instruction is students are writing. They are developing meaningful writing projects and are putting words on the page every day. And, as their teacher, I’m getting behind what they are doing and helping them to become more proficient, joyful writers.
How about you? What is most important when it comes to writing instruction?
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I agree with Dollie and have to add conferring. It is my favorite part of the day!
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Yes, I agree that students will improve their writing skills by writing, but there is more. It is time that we incorporate the Common Core State Standards into our teaching practices. By having students specifically work on these writing skills, they will be better prepared for the 21st century workplace. It is imperative that we teach our students to be proficient in writing agruments to support claims and write informative essays to convey complex ideas.Our students deserve our instruction in these skills because yes, we want to prepare students to write well long term. http://core4all.wordpress.com
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I think the most important thing in writing instruction is making time for sharing.
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As I read through the proofs of the book today I came across a piece of yours that this post reminds me of. Originally, there weren’t many resources for teaching writing workshop. Now there are so many to sift through it’s hard to strain out what is good and what’s foolish (i.e., an exercise that will help writing for a day, but not help the writer for life).
I think the most important thing, for writing instruction, is that we are constantly doing things that will prepare students to write well long term. Not just for middle or high school (or college), but for life.
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