teaching creative writing professional development

Professional Development for Teacher-Writers

Creating a sound program, stage 1: the self as writer, stage 2: the self as teacher of writing, stage 3: what strategies are possible, stage 4: students as writers, stage 5: articulating new knowledge, effective teacher support.

This is not to say that I had bad, lazy, or uninformed teachers. I studied, for the most part, with caring professionals who spent hours reading their students' writing, correcting every error they found. But I experienced something different in that writing instruction class, what Hairston referred to a few years later as “the winds of change” (1982). In the late 1970s and early 1980s, a revolution in the community of writing teachers led to a shift in writing instruction. Hairston characterized this shift by distinguishing between a traditional and a new model of writing instruction. The traditional model focused on the composed product, with its adherents believingthat competent writers know what they are going to say before they begin to write; thus their most important task when they are preparing to write is finding a form. . . to organize their content. They also believe that the composing process is linear, that it proceeds systematically from prewriting to writing to rewriting. Finally, they believe that teaching editing is teaching writing. (p. 78)

Years of research now suggest a plethora of effective strategies and approaches that can help students become thoughtful, critical writers. Yet as I talk to teachers across the United States and observe instruction in schools, I find far too many classrooms in which students are not receiving the kind of instruction that both research and experience recommend. The report from the National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges confirms my observations:Although many models of effective writing instruction exist . . . both the teaching and practice of writing are increasingly shortchanged throughout the school and college years. (2003, p. 14)

Conference on English Education Commission on Inservice Education. (1994). Inservice education: Ten principles. English Education, 26 , 125–128.

Hairston, M. (1982). The winds of change: Thomas Kuhn and the revolution in the teaching of writing. College Composition and Composition, 33 (1), 76–88.

National Commission on Writing in America's Schools and Colleges. (2003). The neglected “R”: The need for a writing revolution . New York: College Board. Available: www.writingcommission.org

• 1 The National Writing Project (NWP), a professional development program for teachers, has worked with K–16 teachers for the past 25 years. For more information on NWP, see www.writingproject.org . The National Council of Teachers of English's Writing CoLEARN is a more recent online professional development program designed to help staffs or individual teachers improve their teaching of writing. For more information on CoLEARN, see www.ncte.org/profdev .

ASCD is a community dedicated to educators' professional growth and well-being.

Let us help you put your vision into action., from our issue.

To process a transaction with a Purchase Order please send to [email protected]