What Does the Research on Teaching Writing Show? Do you want to improve your students’ writing? Well, don’t teach grammar! I’m serious. Teaching grammar doesn’t improve student writing. I will never forget the year when I devoted an unreasonable amount of time to teaching grammar in the hopes that students would stop making all those [...]
State Standards, Standardized Tests, and… Writer’s Workshop? In the real world of state standards and standardized tests, it can be a little difficult for a teacher to get their head around what Writer’s Workshop is. As long as I have been teaching there has been a continuing push towards making teachers more and more accountable [...]
Controversy in the World of Writer’s Workshop Teaching writing… in the world of teaching… is “controversial.” So few teachers really feel they know how to teach “writing” well. Everyone feels they teach “grammar” just fine, but writing… This feeling of uncertainty creates defensiveness and high emotions. But even in the world of teaching writing… just [...]
The Research Shows Series: Current Views on Teaching Writing and Writer’s Workshop What are today’s best practices in teaching writing? Decades of research have shown that isolated skill drills do little to improve student writing. All of the research indicates that students must spend more time writing in order to become effective writers. Students should [...]