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What I love about teaching writing is there鈥檚 always something new to learn. So whether you鈥檙e relatively new to the classroom or an experienced teacher who loves crafting ever better lessons, Kelly Gallagher鈥檚 new book speaks to you. In (Stenhouse Publishers), Gallagher, an English teacher and co-director of the South Basin Writing Project at California State University鈥揕ong Beach, builds on two earlier popular works, Reading Reasons and Deeper Reading. It鈥檚 an easy book to read, sprinkled with humor, yet chocked full of pertinent research and theory and infused with practical mini-lessons that can improve students鈥� ability to write.
Gallagher begins with an analogy that likens students without writing proficiency to people facing a herd of stampeding bulls. What can students do about what he terms the 鈥淟iteracy Stampede鈥� in this age of information? The answer is they can either try (as many do) to avoid or deny it鈥攁nd ultimately be trampled鈥攐r they can improve their reading and writing skills so they can keep up.
Gallagher backs up his literacy concerns with some interesting statistics, culled from a variety of sources:
鈥� Ninety-seven percent of elementary students write less than three hours a week.
鈥� Compositions of a paragraph or more are infrequent even at the high school level, and 40 percent of 12th graders report they never or hardly ever are assigned a composition of three or more pages in length.
鈥� In a writing survey by the National Assessment of Educational Progress, only 31 percent of eighth graders and 24 percent of twelfth graders scored at proficient or above.
鈥� On California鈥檚 high school exit exam, two-thirds of students scored a two or lower on a scale of four.
鈥� The SAT has eliminated the analogy section, and in its place requires on-demand writing.
鈥� Employers increasingly demand writing competency from their workers.
鈥� In the last 30 years more information was produced than in the preceding 5,000 years, and information is doubling every four years!
If, as Gallagher asserts, 鈥淭oday, writing is foundational for success,鈥� what鈥檚 an English teacher to do? Acknowledging that many secondary students struggle with writing, Gallagher offers several recommendations, including providing students with an understanding of real purposes for writing and avoiding 鈥渇ake鈥� school writing assignments. By creating authentic writing activities, he says, teachers can help students to develop the intrinsic motivation to learn to write well.
Gallagher also addresses our difficulties with unmotivated, anxious, negative, or reluctant writers and their learned helplessness. He recommends 鈥渋ntensive hands-on writing instruction,鈥� which he delineates in his 鈥淪ix Pillars of Writing Success鈥�:
1. Students need a lot more writing practice. (In fact, Gallagher supports the National Commission on Writing鈥檚 declaration that students must double their current amount of writing.)
2. Students need teachers who model good writing.
3. Students need the opportunity to read and study other authors.
4. Students need choice when it comes to writing topics. (Teachers can work students into the desired discourses and genres slowly, Gallagher says, by designing writing assignments that allow for partial student choice.)
5. Students need to write for authentic purposes and for authentic audiences. (As a strong proponent of service learning in language arts classrooms, I particularly valued Gallagher鈥檚 arguments on this topic.)
6. Students need meaningful feedback from both the teacher and their peers.
Once he鈥檚 made his case for the Six Pillars, Gallagher addresses the practical means of instruction by which we can achieve these objectives. He offers a wide variety of mini-lessons appropriate for middle and high school students and their teachers. The strategies incorporate both daily and weekly writing, on-demand assessments of writing, a focus on the writer鈥檚 craft, and the use of assessment to drive improvement. I especially appreciated the section in Chapter 3 on both teacher and peer revision strategies鈥攁 tough issue for many English teachers. He finishes up with a very strong appendix of great practical use.
Teaching Adolescent Writers ends as it began, with a return to the Literacy Stampede. 鈥淭he stampede is now upon our students,鈥� he writes, 鈥渁nd there is no time to waste.鈥� With Gallagher鈥檚 book in hand, teachers of writing鈥攊n English classes and across the curriculum鈥攈ave a great new tool for helping students speed up their progress toward writing proficiency before they get trampled.
