During our conversation with Carl Anderson, co-author of How to Become a Better Writing Teacher, he noted a frustration with literacy resources being replaced.
From Minute 27:
“There's part of me that says we should separate reading and writing curriculums. Every time we change a reading curriculum, now the writing curriculum changes. I know that there's all sorts of connections between reading and writing, but if changing the reading curriculum based on the prevailing winds is going to change the writing curriculum and the kids just completely get a brand new experience…”
What are your thoughts: do you share Carl’s frustration? Would separating reading and writing be a viable way to shelter our writers from the political winds of reading instruction?
This is a tough question. Ideally I don't think they need to be separated. I think the connections and conversations are richer when they are connected. Sometimes I think it's good to front load the writing a bit with the reading. I think reading tends to have shorter cycles of learning and sometimes writing gets dragged out quite a bit. I've lived that world myself. I've recently been doing shorter writing cycles, publishing more, and getting back to a cycle of pure choice and the stamina and quality of writing has soared. The world of reading is uncertain where I teach and writing is starting to get dragged in to it too. I am hopefully there is a connection because one popular book is very direct and a formula and that form of teaching writing is not research based or honors living a writing life. There are some tiny things to take away from it as will be with any curriculum we are asked to do.
I recently had a conversation with our currlculum director about our new math curriculum. He said and I'm paraphrasing. Fidelity gets tossed around with all curriculum adoptions and fidelity is really about knowing the resource so well you can go beyond and be responsive. We need to stay focused on being responsive to children.
My initial response is, no, I don't think we should separate the two, although I empathize with what Carl sees. It's a real problem. Teachers invest years into their writing practice and resources, only to see it upended by recommended programs that too often lack relevance for kids or a strong evidence-base.
Maybe a way to approach this challenge is to ask, how do we build our capacity to effectively teach readers and writers, regardless of whatever curriculum program is presented in front of us?
While reading informs writing, reading responses do not always need to be written. A lot can be gained through conversations with students to assess their understanding of text. Equally, writing activities do not need to be in response to something a student has read. Responses to text can be the basis of some of the writing activities, but equally writing for other purposes is important and helpful to student development. We need to be assessing progress in writing and determine if students' writing skills match their oral abilities. Ideas, purpose, audience, structure, grammar, word choice, spelling, sentence structure are some of the multiple strands of the "writing rope".
This is a tough question. Ideally I don't think they need to be separated. I think the connections and conversations are richer when they are connected. Sometimes I think it's good to front load the writing a bit with the reading. I think reading tends to have shorter cycles of learning and sometimes writing gets dragged out quite a bit. I've lived that world myself. I've recently been doing shorter writing cycles, publishing more, and getting back to a cycle of pure choice and the stamina and quality of writing has soared. The world of reading is uncertain where I teach and writing is starting to get dragged in to it too. I am hopefully there is a connection because one popular book is very direct and a formula and that form of teaching writing is not research based or honors living a writing life. There are some tiny things to take away from it as will be with any curriculum we are asked to do.
I recently had a conversation with our currlculum director about our new math curriculum. He said and I'm paraphrasing. Fidelity gets tossed around with all curriculum adoptions and fidelity is really about knowing the resource so well you can go beyond and be responsive. We need to stay focused on being responsive to children.
My initial response is, no, I don't think we should separate the two, although I empathize with what Carl sees. It's a real problem. Teachers invest years into their writing practice and resources, only to see it upended by recommended programs that too often lack relevance for kids or a strong evidence-base.
Maybe a way to approach this challenge is to ask, how do we build our capacity to effectively teach readers and writers, regardless of whatever curriculum program is presented in front of us?
While reading informs writing, reading responses do not always need to be written. A lot can be gained through conversations with students to assess their understanding of text. Equally, writing activities do not need to be in response to something a student has read. Responses to text can be the basis of some of the writing activities, but equally writing for other purposes is important and helpful to student development. We need to be assessing progress in writing and determine if students' writing skills match their oral abilities. Ideas, purpose, audience, structure, grammar, word choice, spelling, sentence structure are some of the multiple strands of the "writing rope".