Reflection

NIWP

What's Right with Writing
by Linda Rief

"Writing today is not a frill for the few, but an essential skill for the many."
The National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges

Now this article was readable, thank you Ms. Rief, and I can relate and apply a lot of it to what I want to implement in my classroom in six short weeks. But before I go into my personal thoughts, there was one particular statement Rief makes that echoes Emig, from my previous reflection piece, and takes it one step further. Rief writes, "In an era of test-mania, we tend to forget, or dismiss, the importance of writing. If we allow that, others will do our thinking." This is such a powerful statement!!! What kind-of society could we become then? This is enough to give you nightmares!

Teaching writing has been (notice this is past-tense) my Achilles (sp?) heel. While I enjoy writing, and use to make a small salary at it, I struggle and dread how to teach it! So much of writing to me is intuitive, like reading. Thus I am thrilled to read Rief, Lein, and Culkins for their insightful how-tos, and to feel their enthusiam for this difficult task. It is obvious that each of these women, like our facilitators, Christy and April, are passionate about writing and teaching writing. This is, I think, starting to rub off on me. Thank you, thank you!

Rief makes some interesting points that I hadn't previously thought about, but that I can understand and agree with:

• Writing is thinking. It's not memorizing facts like I ask my students to do w/the multiplication tables, and naming capital cities.
• There is no one process that defines the way all writers write. It's good for me to see this in print - each student is diverse in their needs and abilities...dah!!!
• Process (the evidence of thinking shown though drafts of writing) and product (as exhibited through a polished, best draft) are equally important. I would not have thought of these as being equally important, until I came to the Summer Institute where I can see the importance and the difference between the two!

I like the questions that Rief asks students for a short, quick, daily responses to literature:

• What did this reading bring to mind for me?
• What did I think or feel or learn as I read?
• What questions came to mind?
• What, in my own experience, is similar or different?
• How does this make me feel about the world?

Rief continues on with these profound, in my mind, reasons to write. "I knew then, as I know now, that if we want children to become adults who are articulate, literate, and thoughtful citizens of the world, they must learn to think deeply and widely. They must commit their thinking to paper, learning how to be memoirists, poets, essayists, journalists, playwrights, activists, speechwriters, novelists, critics, scientists, historians, so they and other can examine, support, debate, challenge, and then refine those beliefs, feelings, and thoughts... Putting words on paper gives us voice---allows us to be heard. All the more reason to do it at every opportunity. And then do it some more." How powerful is that??? Do I hear someone saying, "Amen!"