Because Writing Matters E-Book

• Herausgeber: John Wiley & Sons
• Kategorie: Bildung
• Sprache: Englisch

Seitenzahl: 220

Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2006

Beschreibung

This updated edition of the best-selling book Because Writing Matters reflects the most recent research and reports on the need for teaching writing, and it includes new sections on writing and English language learners, technology, and the writing process.

Leseprobe

CONTENTS

Title

Copyright

Dedication

Preface

The Authors

Introduction

Chapter One: Improving Student Writing

How Educators See The Challenges of Teaching and Learning Writing

Everyone Can Learn to Write

Chapter Two: Learning to Write

How Writing was Taught

Teaching Writing as Product

Writing as Process

Technology and the Writing Process

How (and When) Children Learn to Write

The Reading-Writing Connection

Integrating Content, Process, and Skills

The Changing Landscape of Writing Instruction

Writing and English Language Learners

Chapter Three: Writing to Learn

National Writing Assessments

A Study of Effective Writing Assignments

A Study of NWP Classroom Practices

Writing to Learn Across the Curriculum

Writing as Inquiry

Chapter Four: Professional Development

Why Do We Need Professional Development in Writing?

What Happens in Effective Professional Development: The Case of New York City’s District 2

The NWP: Teachers Teaching Teachers

Writing, Technology, and Professional Development

Chapter Five: Standards and Assessments for Writing

A Nation of Writers?

Implementing Standards

The Impact of Writing Assessments on the Classroom

Chapter Six: What Administrators Can Do to Create Effective Writing Programs

Strategies for Effective Writing Programs

Bibliography

Index

Copyright © 2006 by John Wiley & Sons, Inc. All rights reserved.

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

National Writing Project (U.S.)

Because writing matters : improving student writing in our schools/National Writing Project and Carl Nagin.—2nd ed.

p. cm. — (The Jossey-Bass education series)

Includes bibliographical references and index.

ISBN 0-7879-8067-6 (alk. paper)

1. English language—Composition and exercises—Study and teaching—United States. I. Nagin, Carl, 1946- II. Title. III. Series.

PE1405.U6N38 2006

808.042071073—dc22 2005032612

The Jossey-Bass Education Series

PREFACE

For more than three decades, the core mission of the National Writing Project (NWP) has been to improve writing and learning in our schools by improving the teaching of writing. Through a teachers-teaching-teachers professional development model, the NWP disseminates the exemplary classroom practices of successful teachers to teachers in all disciplines and at all grade levels. The past three decades have also yielded a rich vein of new research about writing: how it is learned, practiced, and assessed; its impact on how children learn to read; and the sociocultural factors that influence its development. Yet surprisingly little of these new data and understanding, some of which originated with the NWP, has reached the general public; nor do these new findings inform much current debate about educational reform. The challenge has been to gather and present this complex body of educational research and hands-on experience to decision makers who may lack the time to sort through it. How does it all translate into an action plan, and how does it fit into a curriculum that must be assessed and achieve results?

The idea for a book that examines the condition of writing in our nation’s schools developed as the National Writing Project worked with administrators and policymakers in advancing its core mission. Local writing project site leaders have seen the need for such a work, one that would draw on what the NWP has learned about teaching writing and make that knowledge available to a broad audience of policymakers, school administrators, teachers, parents, and others concerned with education reform. NWP directors have observed that among the many books about writing, none synthesizes current research and present the case for teaching writing well in a way that is persuasive to decision makers, administrators, and the general public.

Such a book is no small order. Writing, as many educators have noted recently, remains the “silent R” in the traditional triad of what students need to learn. Today, there is an urgency to reconsider the relationship of writing to learning as well as the place of writing in our schools as we make every effort to meet our students’ needs in the information age and prepare them to become informed and active citizens in the twenty-first century.

To examine how the teaching of writing can be improved and to present what is known about effective programs and practices, the National Writing Project asked Carl Nagin, an award-winning journalist and teacher of writing, to research and write this book. As part of that effort, Nagin conducted extensive interviews with principals, district superintendents, teachers, and education researchers to identify the core challenges and issues these educators face in building effective writing programs. The book offers case studies of how teachers and administrators have worked together to meet those challenges, both in individual classrooms and as part of a sustained, schoolwide effort. Because Writing Matters shows how research-based strategies have been developed into successful practice and programs. It makes the case for the importance of writing for those who recognize the need to improve it and seek models for reaching that goal.

Richard Sterling

Executive Director

National Writing Project

THE AUTHORS

The National Writing Project (NWP) is a professional development network dedicated to improving student writing and learning by improving the teaching of writing in U.S. schools. Begun in 1973 at the University of California, Berkeley, the NWP is a steadily growing network of sites—189 in 2005—in fifty states; Washington, D.C.; Puerto Rico; and the U.S. Virgin Islands. NWP sites use a teachers-teaching-teachers model that draws on the knowledge, expertise, and leadership of successful classroom teachers to serve more than one hundred thousand teachers annually, grades K–16, in all disciplines. Numerous research studies demonstrate the success of the NWP model in improving student writing achievement. Support for the National Writing Project is provided by the U.S. Department of Education, foundations, corporations, universities, and K–12 schools.

Carl Nagin is a journalist, editor, and teacher. He has worked for the PBS series “Frontline,” and his articles have appeared in such national publications as the New Yorker, the New York Times, and Art and Antiques. A four-time recipient of grants from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Nagin has received awards for his teaching, research, and documentary films. He taught writing at the high school and college levels for more than fifteen years as a faculty member at Harvard University and at the New England Conservatory of Music, where he directed the freshman writing program. As an editor, he has worked on K–12 curriculum projects for the Massachusetts Department of Education and for the Developmental Studies Center in Oakland, California. Nagin currently resides in Berkeley, California.

INTRODUCTION

Why Writing Matters

Concern with the quality of student writing has been a perennial feature of the American educational landscape. What has changed are assumptions about its uses and importance both within and outside the classroom as well as what educators have learned about teaching it. The need for freshman writing courses, one of the most consistently required subjects in the postsecondary curriculum, dates back to 1874, when Harvard University began requiring a written entrance exam. Harvard’s version of the course came in response to the poor writing of its upperclassmen1 and the results of its entrance exam, which more than half the candidates—“products of America’s best preparatory schools”—failed.2

For most of the nineteenth century, according to Arthur Applebee, director of the National Research Center on English Learning and Achievement (CELA), “the teaching of writing [in elementary and secondary schools] focused on penmanship and little else. Later, writing instruction was often postponed until the middle and upper grades,” on the notion that students first had to achieve basic literacy in reading. Writing was something of a silent R, even among Progressives, whose influence on writing pedagogy was “limited to writing about personal experiences or about experiential connections to literature.”