American education places a great deal of emphasis on literacy. And that’s great! Literacy is perhaps the most fundamental academic skill there is. But too often, literacy seems to mean reading and the flip side of the coin, writing, gets limited attention.
In fact, most teacher preparation programs don’t even include a requirement that teacher candidates receive any specific instruction in how to teach writing at all.
Good writing instruction teaches students to read text with an author’s eye. It’s about learning to deconstruct text in order to reconstruct it. To ensure that our students are learning to write, and in turn, read to their full potential, we must provide teachers with the instruction they need. Putting a focus on professional development that builds reading into writing instruction, a common language and assured experiences around writing, and extending writing across the curriculum wherever and whenever students interact with text is the foundation of strong PD.
Much writing instruction seems to rely on the old adage that practice makes perfect—that if students do a lot of writing, they will become skilled writers. But that’s not necessarily true.
Think of someone who wants to play one song on a piano but doesn’t know anything about performing music. If their piano teacher simply tells them to just sit at the piano and practice for 30 minutes a day for a month, how much progress are they likely to make in that time?