Everything in teaching writing comes down to time. The most serious discussions on actually improving students’ writing (not just teaching writing) focus primarily on time. Furthermore, the teaching-writing research and philosophies also address how teachers should use their time.
One of the most difficult facts for teachers to grasp is this: Decades of research show that grammar instruction and isolated skill drills do little to improve students’ writing. Let’s admit it—turning pages and passing out worksheets is easy, which is why teachers want to believe that turning pages and passing out worksheets works in teaching writing. The first step forward in using your time wisely and getting off the worksheet treadmill is to download and read my free eBook Nine Strategies for Teaching Writing Across the Curriculum.
There is also another unfortunate reality of teaching writing. Teachers often get more credit and accolades for improving their students’ standardized test scores than for improving their students’ writing. In 2003, The National Commission on Writing issued a report called, “The Neglected ‘R’: The Need for a Writing Revolution” that addresses this fact. Although this reality is changing somewhat, teachers still must manage their time wisely.
Getting Clear About Your Time
In Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay and in all of my free teaching-writing resources, I try to help teachers master teaching writing in a way that gets results on the page and on assessments and in a way that allows them to use their time wisely.
To be clear, any person can generate dramatic results with Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay just by turning pages. I know that many parents do just that with their children who struggle with writing. But as classroom teachers, we must juggle multiple subjects and/or multiple aspects of language arts.
The more teachers get clear on the time that they have and what they must accomplish in that time, the more effectively they will use their time. Let’s take a second to think about your time:
Step 1: Think about everything you are required to teach and want to teach in language arts. Think about every primary and supplemental curriculum that you own and use. Think about how all of this relates to teaching writing.
Step 2: Think about everything that you teach your students across the curriculum. Think about how this CONTENT across the curriculum is CONTENT to write about.
Step 3: Think about having students who can create organized multi-paragraph writing across the curriculum quickly and easily. That’s what Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay delivers.
Step 4: Think about how you can teach writing and everything else you teach across the curriculum within the context of paragraph and multi-paragraph writing. Think about how you can use Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay across the curriculum.
Instructional Time vs. Actual Time Writing
We have two types of time in teaching writing:
1. Instructional time
2. Actual time spent writing
When I began teaching, I didn’t understand why Writer’s Workshop used the term mini-lesson. I didn’t like that term at all. But what I came to understand over the years was that students learn to write by 1) prewriting, 2) writing, 3) rewriting, and 4) publishing. Writer’s Workshop devotes most of its time to having students write, which is why its lessons are MINI. As the Definitive List of Writing and Grammar Skills illustrates and the research makes clear, you can teach an endless list of skills and concepts and still not improve your students’ writing.
Once again, in 2003, The National Commission on Writing issued a report called, “The Neglected ‘R’: The Need for a Writing Revolution.” This report is obsessed with two things: 1) time, and 2) creating effective writing teachers. Its focus on time is primarily on actual time spent writing, not instructional time. In short, students need to spend more time writing, and they need a qualified writing teacher to guide them. Even when it comes to developing qualified writing teachers, the report is obsessed with time: “Writing is a prisoner of time in the preparation and continuing professional development of teachers, as well.”
The commission made three recommendations related to time:
1. “The amount of time students spend writing should be at least doubled.” (They recommend 60-90 minutes per day.)
2. “Writing should be assigned across the curriculum.”
3. “More out-of-school time should also be used to encourage writing, and parents should review students’ writing with them.”
The primary goal of Pattern Based Writing: Quick & Easy Essay is to bring natural organization to your students’ writing so that you can feel confident about having your students write more. To be clear, there is no point in letting your students practice writing terribly. That’s the wrong kind of time.
