Saturday Sayings: The Lone Ranger

Writing instruction must be on my brain, because while perusing for the perfect quote this morning, I realized I had a dream about it last night. As is often the case, the particulars are hazy, but I do recall having a conversation with a young high school teacher about the importance of the writing his kids were doing in his non-Language Arts class. The CCSS truly does make this one thing clear. All teachers must be writing teachers. And wouldn't it be even more helpful if all teachers had a similar belief of what writing instruction looks like.

The Lone Ranger writing teacher is a common problem. An early elementary teacher has their work cut out for them if the writers they receive at the beginning of the year think that writing is filling in the blank ("I like to ____.") or writing letters to represent missing sounds on a worksheet. That teacher can make huge gains with those writers but can surely imagine how much further along they would be if they had arrived with a different skill set. Those young writers might then head to another grade where writing is solely directed by teacher prompts and topics. The writers will grow in that place, but they might lose a bit of their motivation or personal connection to the process. In the situation I've described, as writers progress from one writing environment to the next, I believe the disconnect between foundational practice can impede student progress. 

I am the last person to say that all teachers must be on the same page. In fact, that's one of my least favorite teachery thoughts of all time. I do believe in the importance of being on the same pedagogical page though. I agree with Calkins that vertical alignment and agreement about best teaching practices is vital. The CCSS is raising the bar for our writers, and I believe it's totally within their reach. They just need their writing teachers to step up their game and give them consistent excellent writing instruction from one grade to the next. Anything less is simply impractical.