Monday, January 18, 2010

BEST WRITING Practices

Happy MLK Day,

It's foggy out this morning, but at least we don't HAVE to drive in it, do we? YaY! I hope you are sleeping in or doing something wonderful on your day off! I'm heading for the gym and my beloved treadmill in a few minutes, but I want to leave a short post for day 18 before I take off.

I've written a lot about reading over the past 17 days, so I want to shift the focus to writing today. I received an email from The English Companion, a social network for language arts educators, asking for input on questions about writing in the secondary classroom. The purpose for the questions was to inform Carol Booth Olson, NCTE President, about educators' thoughts about this topic. These are the questions posed.

Most important question:

What is missing from adolescent writing instruction?

Other questions of concern:
  1. What are proven and effective writing practices that should be in operation?
  2. What should students be able to do at the end of middle school in terms of writing?
  3. What should students be able to do at the end of high school in terms ofwriting?
As happy as I am to pass on my thoughts, I would LOVE to hear your comments concerning these issues. I am thinking about creating a short answer survey to pass onto all of you since I received such a great response from the reading-aloud survey.

In the meantime, I encourage you to visit Carol Booth Olson's Reading/Writing Connection site. Carol is best known for her research in this area and has published a best-seller on the topic. The aforementioned website includes resources from her book, and I have turned to it many times.

Additionally, we just learned that she will be a featured speaker at next fall's UCTE Conference in October.

Signing off for NOW,
Renae