Judith C. Hochman has long seen holes in writing instruction.
鈥淲e鈥檙e very good at assigning writing,鈥� she explains. 鈥淲e鈥檙e not very good at teaching kids how to write.鈥�
While working as head of a private school for students with disabilities more than two decades ago, she devised a program to teach the explicit skills she鈥檇 found many students to be missing鈥攈ow to expand sentences using words like because, but, and so; how to combine sentences using conjunctions; how to write a focused topic sentence. Students learn these writing skills within the science, history, and other subjects they are studying.
In 2012, the Hochman Method, as it was known, was featured in an after implementing the program. Hochman was quickly overwhelmed with requests for training, and soon formed a nonprofit to provide courses and partner with schools and districts. The group鈥檚 advisory board includes some well-known yet divisive education figures鈥擠avid Coleman, who crafted the Common Core State Standards for literacy and is now president of the College Board, and Doug Lemov, author of Teach Like a Champion.
And now Hochman, with the help of education writer Natalie Wexler, has written a book. The Writing Revolution, which shares the name of both the Atlantic article and the nonprofit, will be released in July.
I spoke with Hochman and her co-author Wexler recently about their recipe for writing instruction and why they think it works. (The Q&A has been edited for length and clarity.)
You two come from the perspective that writing instruction is failing students. What are the problems you see in the way students are being taught to write?
Hochman: It鈥檚 self-centered. ... Students have a lot of free-writing in journals. They have a writing period where they鈥檙e given [a prompt] like, 鈥淪hould we have a longer recess?鈥� and they鈥檙e writing about that.
The instruction ... is almost nonexistent. Our students write the way they speak, and they don鈥檛 really learn the difference between the structures of how we speak versus the structures of how we write.
The answer really is not to teach grammar in isolation. You can diagram sentences from now to Tuesday and it really isn鈥檛 going to inform composing. Children should learn [the parts of speech], but they should learn them embedded in writing instruction.
Wexler: As we we say in the book, you can鈥檛 write well unless you know what you鈥檙e writing about well. You can鈥檛 really separate the skill of writing from knowledge of what you鈥檙e writing about.
Schools also don鈥檛 really focus on the sentence level that much. Certainly beyond elementary school, students are not mastering the art of crafting a sentence. And if you can鈥檛 write a good sentence, you can鈥檛 write a good paragraph, and you can鈥檛 write a good essay.
There are a few grammatical structures that you focus on having students learn, such as appositives.
Hochman: Yes. 鈥淭he Writing Revolution, a not-for-profit organization, is headquartered in New York.鈥�
With an appositive [such as the clause 鈥渁 not-for-profit organization鈥� in that sentence], you鈥檙e presenting more information about the subject.
Explain how you have students learn appositives.
Hochman: It might start in elementary school as a simple matching exercise, where they鈥檙e looking at the subject and matching it to the appositive device in the sentence. And then we might give them a sentence with a blank in it and tell them to add an appositive. And then we might say we want to see a topic sentence with an appositive in it.
What are some other writing devices you teach explicitly?
Hochman: We give them very discrete ways to write topic sentences. So we might say one of the ways to start a topic sentence, and a very useful way, is to use a subordinating conjunction. 鈥淲hile many teachers want to stress creative writing, others believe that an emphasis on expository writing will be more productive for students.鈥� That word 鈥渨hile,鈥� and putting [the writer鈥檚] position last, that鈥檚 important for students to know.
We also teach starting sentences with dependent clauses. 鈥淎lthough there are many fine educational publications, 澳门跑狗论坛 is outstanding for many reasons.鈥�
That beginning [鈥渁lthough鈥漖 is a dependent clause, which is not the way we speak. This will help them navigate these dependent clauses when they have to read original documents or classic literature or literature that they鈥檙e assigned routinely to read. It鈥檚 enabling them to process language at a much higher level.
A criticism of the technique you鈥檙e using is that it鈥檚 too constricting, there鈥檚 too much of a focus on process, that it stifles students鈥� creativity. What鈥檚 your response?
Hochman: If they mean by 鈥榗reativity鈥� the notion of personal memoirs鈥攆our and five paragraphs in 4th or 5th grade鈥攐r writing poems, or other activities like that, we feel there鈥檚 very limited instructional time in schools, and we鈥檝e got to teach where the returns are going to be the greatest.
We try to use the strategies that have the highest leverage for shifting them from oral structures to written structures within your content.
The way we teach children to write introductions and conclusions, for example, some people might say it鈥檚 formulaic. Our response to that is: Do you go into a kitchen and start to bake a cake without a recipe? Once you learn how to use the recipe and you bake a pretty good cake, you may come up with variations that are appropriate.
Wexler: Writing is an extremely complex process, so if you鈥檙e trying to think about the mechanics and master those at the same time you鈥檙e trying to express yourself, you have less creativity left over to think about your content鈥攚hat it is you want to say.
But if you鈥檝e got those tools of crafting interesting sentences under your belt so they become more or less
automatic, then you can unleash your creativity and really focus your limited brainpower on what you want to say.
What鈥檚 wrong with turning students loose to write freely every so often? Can鈥檛 that help foster a love of writing?
Hochman: We usually love what we do well. Most people don鈥檛 love what they hate to do. So the people who talk about kids loving writing, the possibility of them loving something that鈥檚 pretty widely recognized as something that they don鈥檛 do well is very remote.
Right after the common core was published, there was a lot of talk, including in the Atlantic article, about how the standards upped the ante for what鈥檚 required of student writers, and would therefore change how writing is taught. Do you think that鈥檚 happened?
Hochman: I think the answer is no. Because [the standards] tell you what鈥檚 expected, but they don鈥檛 tell you how to get there.
What you see is much more challenging assignments. So you go into an elementary school and you see all these multiparagraph compositions, and if you look closely, they don鈥檛 have the coherence and organization that one would expect.
These kids are being asked to do things at a much younger age, but they鈥檙e not being shown how to do it. And that鈥檚 a frustration for the teachers, parents, and kids.
Wexler: The standards go grade by grade and they assume that once you鈥檝e gotten to middle school or high school, we don鈥檛 have to worry about your ability to write a sentence because we took care of that in elementary school. But in fact that hasn鈥檛 happened with a lot of kids.
Images (Top and Bottom, respectively): Judith C. Hochman, Natalie Wexler