WRITING INITIATIVE

Last summer, administrators and teachers began to revise the language arts curriculum to address the specific strand of writing. We've always known that writing can be taught, and for many years the writing process has been the effective practice in place.

But we also have learned that in order to prepare our students for their writing lives, we need to provide opportunities for them to make decisions about their purposes for writing, and teach them the multifaceted forms of writing that exist. We've always known that writing is a tool for thinking. But the specific structure of writing, with definite purpose and for a specific audience, shapes the practice of teaching writing. It is increasingly important to provide opportunities for our students to write for many more purposes than ever before. In today's world, writing is used to:

• Engage in civic discourse
• Support personal growth
• Reflect on experience
• Communicate professionally and academically
• Build relationships with others
• Engage in aesthetic experiences

How can we teach students to write for these purposes?

• At the secondary level, students are reading literature as readers, and then analyzing the literature again, analyzing the writers' techniques, and applying those techniques purposefully in their own writing. They do this by examining a variety of forms of quality literature.

• At the elementary level, students read and analyze quality literature of all types, and then are writing in workshop environments to choose their own specific purposes for real world writing. They are drafting and revising their writing. They're discussing the craft of writing, conferencing with teachers and students, and refining their skills.
  
  
• In Kindergarten, students are sharing experiences, listening to and looking at quality literature, and writing stories, in many cases moving from temporary to conventional spelling as they express their thoughts on paper.

This is very exciting, because the very act of writing and revising increases thinking. Ask your child to show you the kinds of things he/she has been writing in school!

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