Miss Austs

Philoso!y of Teaching W"ting

To write is to think. It is to create. It is to inspire. It is to change. Writing is a powerful
tool that is crucial to every education; the ability to write well can take students further than they
ever imagined possible. Writing is not just a finished product, but it involves an entire process;
during this process, it is the teachers job to encourage and gently mold writing, but never to
stifle creativity.
To write is to think. While a student is writing, they are thinking. It often involves careful
consideration of placing words on a page, or hitting keys on the keyboard. During brainstorming,
thinking is key and an open mind is required. This is explained further in The Norton Book of
Composition Studies, Shaping at the point of utterance involves, first, drawing upon interpreted
experience... and secondly, seems to involve getting behind this to a more direct apperception of
the felt quality of experiencing... by which means the act of writing becomes itself a
contemplative act revealing further coherence.
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In my classroom, students will engage in the act
of contemplation daily in their writing journals with various prompts to encourage free writing.
To write is to create. The importance of creating new things is one of the aspects so
important to composition and English Language Arts as a subject. Students do not always have
the opportunity to create in other classes, only to solve problems that already have a correct
answer. Learning to create something original is monumental to students not just for school
1
James Britton, Anthony Burgess, Nancy Martin, Alex McLeod, and Harold Rosen. Shaping at the Point of
Utterance. The Norton Book of Composition Studies. 461-466.
work, but in preparing them for life in general. In my classroom, students will have the
opportunity to create multiple forms of their own writing, including a book of their own poetry.
To write is to inspire. Not only can students inspire themselves, but their writing can
inspire their peers, parents, or anyone who reads their work. Using collaborative techniques is an
essential aspect of the writing classroom. By using the resource of one another, students can help
inspire each other. Kenneth Bruffee, an advocate for collaborative learning, claims it is a way of
engaging students more deeply with a text and that collaborative pedagogy provides a social
context students can experience and practice the kinds of conversation valued by college
teachers.
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By using each other as a resource, students create meaningful conversations and
writing as they inspire one another to push further in their abilities. In my classroom, students
will work together on a variety of writing assignments through peer editing and collaborative
writing projects.
To write is to change. Many times, people write for change: from changing the world
around them to changing someones perspective on an issue. By both reading and writing on
critical and cultural subjects, students can write desiring change or stating an opinion. As
teachers we should never force students to have a certain opinion, but rather educate and inform
them of the world around them. By assigning students to read writing that has inspired change, I
hope to motivate them to create their own influential writing. Keeping the classroom current and
aware of this ever-changing society is key in keeping students interested and creating meaningful
writing.
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from excerpt in GCP. Kennedy, Krista and Rebecca Howard. Collaborative Writing, Print to Digital. 37-54.