Positioning Writers as Decision Makers

A Chapter from When Teaching Writing Gets TOUGH

Summary:
This short chapter from When Teaching Writing Gets Tough: Challenges and Possibilities in Secondary Writing Instruction offers three suggestions for changing your writing instruction to support student writers as independent decision makers.

Download “Positioning Writers as Decision Makers” (PDF)

Buy the book →

“Recognizing our students’ humanity and acknowledging and leveraging the interdependence in this ecosystem—among the students, between the students and the teacher, and among the students, teachers, and texts—are the keys to addressing the wicked problem of teaching writers and of positioning our students as decision makers. This positioning means addressing each writer and writing situation as unique, the heart of the wicked problem that teachers face when guiding students to navigate the ecosystem in the classroom and to raise their awareness of their own decision-making power.”

Topics/tags:

Teaching Writing

The Write Time with Author Keenan Jones and Educator Ali Adan

By National Writing Project

This episode of The Write Time features Keenan Jones, author of Saturday Morning at the Shop. Keenan is interviewed by Delaware elementary teacher Ali Adan.

Student Voices and Public Writing

Publishing is an important stage of the writing process, and writing for audiences beyond the teacher makes writing more meaningful and can inspire students to do their best work. This chapter supports English teachers to help young people find ways for their voices to be heard, with a focus on student writing about the climate crisis.

Starting Small: Growing Literacy-Based Climate Pedagogy by Enhancing Existing Curricula

This chapter supports elementary teachers who want to develop literacy-based climate pedagogy by enhancing existing curriculum—for example, by adding interactive read-alouds of literature or multimodal texts, topical word work, or mentor texts for writing.