Since I started my journey in the teaching world, I recognized the importance of writing. However, when I would voice my concerns that we should be focusing more on writing instruction and integrating it into all contents, I was met with considerable push-back. I couldn’t understand why. As I gained experience and talked with different educators, I realized that a major reason for the reluctance and hesitation to embrace writing instruction was due to a lack of confidence in one’s own abilities. “How can I teach writing when I don’t know how to write myself?” “What am I supposed to say?” I heard many times in classrooms, “Make it better!” “Add details.” But there was no explicit instruction on HOW to do those things. If we ourselves can’t articulate the process, how can we expect our students to? As we have progressed in our knowledge of how people learn and the best ways to teach, we’ve learned that writing instruction must be explicit and direct. It must be practiced and implemented in all subjects with fidelity. There are countless studies that show the power of explicit writing instruction.
I thought that we were making strides to righting this wrong. However, I still hear educators (and even administrators!) discount the importance of writing and the writing process. Writing, reading, and thinking go hand-in-hand. How can anyone say, “Oh they don’t need to brainstorm or pre-write. They can just do it one time on the computer.” Writing IS Thinking!!!!! You are depriving your students of the time needed to think out their responses and perfect what they are trying to say. You are depriving your students of THINKING deeply!
Sadly, we have generations of children that cannot write with complexity and accuracy. This hinders them in all areas of their lives. When looking for a job, employers state that one of the strongest factors when looking for a candidate is their written expression. We are not preparing our children to enter the world and be as successful as they can be.
So please, please, explicitly teach your children how to write in various contexts and how to use writing to get their thoughts out in a meaningful and thoughtful way. They deserve that.
Writing is thinking. To write well is to think clearly. That’s why it’s so hard.
David McCullough