I Like Regie Routman

Regie Routman has it figured out in my opinion.  Her ideas (in Writing Essentials, 2005) resonate with truth for me, although sadly, I do not see many of these principles at work in elementary classrooms.  That is because so many schools and teachers subscribe to the cookbook method of teaching writing, by following a prescribed program.  Despite the promise of success, these programs are what suck the creative life and energy out of students' writing.  I have seen examples of this with my own children where writing for school is a drudgery, right up there with vacuuming the house-- they do not sense the value in it because they do not see the purpose.  I believe that one of the most valuable "essentials" that Routman shares is the first one: "Write for a specific reader and a meaningful purpose."  Without these two elements defined, the writing is arbitrary and tedious.

I have observed this in my kindergarten classroom placement.  The children started their "writing journals" the very first week of school.  They were instructed to copy the date, and then draw a picture of anything, and lastly, to label it with inventive spelling.  I was told that I could help with sounding out words, but I was not to do any other coaching or instruction.  Well, some of the kids were excited about this the first few days, and zealously labeled their drawings: "mom", "dad", "brtr" (brother), "sstr" (sister), "flr" (flower) and so on.  Other kids were stumped about what to draw, let alone how to label it.  Within a week, I could easily observe that this journal-writing time was a big chore for the kids, done out of obedience to the teacher, not with any excitement or enthusiasm.  Even the pleasure of sharing their journal with the class at story-time had worn off.  I believe that this was due, in large part, to the fact that the journal writing activity lacked a meaningful, genuine purpose, and the audience was not well-defined.  It made me sad to see these eager, young students already associating writing with a task to be checked off their list of school chores.

I believe that the other piece that was missing from this writing activity was seeing the teacher model the process.  The kids were given a blank journal to fill up-- without any idea of what to fill it with.  Modeling, or explicit instruction, is the process of showing the students how you, yourself work through the writing process.  It is also an essential tool of teaching writing effectively.  In most other subjects, teachers see the value of modeling.  But quite often with writing, it is left up to the kids to figure it out.  I hope that I will remember to model for the kids in my classroom what the writing process looks like, and thus gently lead them towards success in writing.