Learning How to Teach Writing

Nancie Atwell’s chapter “Learning How to Teach Writing” tells of her personal journey doing just that: learning how to teach writing.  I admit that, as I read some of the suggestions she makes throughout the chapter, I experienced some of those same feelings that she wrote about, from apprehension to straight out rejection.  And I believe that I felt this way for the same reasons that she did: both writing and teaching are personal and intimate practices that one feels he or she is the owner (or author) of and that are close to one’s values.  More so, I believe that every teacher and author must go through his or her own journey and learn from his or her own mistakes in order to improve.  Nonetheless, any help along the way – including reading about someone else’s mistakes – certainly can help in the process of this journey. 

Both Atwell and Peterson emphasize the importance of writing alongside the student and being just as active of a learner as you are a teacher.  As Atwell metaphorically says: “Everyone sits at a big desk, and everyone plans what will happen there”.  Although it is important to have more structure in our mini-lessons (in terms of writing conventions and curriculum expectations), we should plan the writing tasks themselves (to avoid Atwell’s dreaded “writing exercises”) so that there is as much freedom as possible. 

The biggest takeaway that I got from Atwell and Peterson was to always question my practices and to challenge any objective rules that could limit both the students’ and my own experience.  The problem (as far as I can tell) is using one’s own personal journey and discoveries to teach others that there is no one model for either and that each one of themt will have their own.