Teaching Adolescent Writers: Chapter Five

(Page 91) “…students write a whole lot better when they care about what they are writing…Choice generates a welcome chain reaction: it creates student buy-in which in turn generates writing motivation, which in turn causes students to write better.”

I feel as if I always start Gallagher responses with, “I love how Gallagher…” and why should this post be any different?!? I love how Gallagher gives tons of examples of providing writing choice in this chapter. I think sometimes, as teachers, we get caught up in the idea that we’re the ones in charge and we need to tell students what to do. If we give students choice then that might create more work for us. I don’t think that’s the case at all. Providing students with options will certainly make the work less painful to read! As Gallagher points out, students are better writers when they’re writing something they care about. So, if we let them have the option to write about something of interest, it will be better written and much more enjoyable to read. I’m not saying that history teachers need to let students write poems about their love lives instead of an analysis of the Civil War. Just let them have a few choices to choose in the process. I’ll tell ya, the one thing I liked better about the old exit exam (BSAP) versus HSAP is that BSAP provided two writing prompts, and students were permitted to choose which one they wanted to write about. I’ve had a hard time understanding why a choice wasn’t given on HSAP when we know it’s better for students.

Ah, but you say, “Yeah, but what about when they get to college? They’re not going to have a choice what to write about then.” Here’s the thing: our students are not in college right now. They’re in high school. Do we need to prepare them for college? Yes. Absolutely. But I repeat: they’re in high school now! Preparing students for college and treating them as if they’re already in college are two different things. We have to take baby steps with them. Gallagher has a great analogy about writing and basketball at the bottom of page 92 though the top of page 93. I think this is an excellent way to think about how we teach our students to write. Nobody gets tossed into a basketball game without lots of coaching and practice, so we should not expect our students to spit out great writing without lots of coaching/teaching and practice!