Literacy, Dec. 7

The Routman text is one I will keep and continually use through my teaching career. She offers great ideas and rationale behind her push for more writing among teachers and students. I have read her sentence on Page 175 about writing every day repeatedly. I'm not so sure about the part that notes how writing every day helps people produce twice the volume than people who write when they feel like it. To me, twice the volume is just twice the volume. But, when she notes that those regular writers produce twice the ideas - well, I think that is a significant point.

People make great discoveries about themselves, their intellect and their world when they write. Also, I believe that regular writing reduces the fear of it and makes writers more mentally agile. They can more easily work themselves out of writing blocks.

I also like the practice of having students brainstorm and make word and idea lists. I have seen a class use this quite effectively. The catch is that the teacher needs to ensure that the students pull from those lists for their writing. I've seen students get engaged in the list-making, but then go back to their same old dry writing.