Teaching writing in the United States

Teaching writing in the United States has progressed through several approaches during the history of education in the United States.

At its most basic level, writing is how people keep track of the thoughts that are important to them. From the ancient Egyptians, to the monks of the Middle Ages, to Thomas Jefferson's Declaration of Independence, writing has been used to capture thought, from the mundane to the profound. In schools, writing serves not only to record, but to refine and synthesize thinking. As school effectiveness researcher Doug Reeves discovered, "The association between writing and performance in other academic disciplines [is] striking, and gets to the heart of the curriculum choices teachers must make."

Early academic instruction in writing centered almost exclusively on mechanics, commonly referred to today as conventions. Emphasis was placed on handwriting, grammar, punctuation and spelling. Papers were more likely to be graded on the precision of these conventions and accuracy of content than on style or creative expression of ideas. Historically, instruction in writing has focused on a narrow pool of concrete, easily definable skills.

Research conducted in the late 1970s by Donald Graves, Janet Emig and others led to a focus on the process, rather than solely the product, of writing. The writing process approach rests on the premise that writing is a complex and individualized task which can be described through a series of recursive stages. These stages, commonly including pre-writing, writing, editing and revision, and the concepts of craft within them, can be modeled and taught to students. This allows the teacher to identify the difficulties students are having with writing and to provide appropriate instruction and support. The writing process approach helps students to understand what writers actually do when they write, providing multiple models and individual feedback on writing pieces in progress. Students are encouraged to choose their own topics and purposes for writing, and to write to real audiences. This approach has been widely adopted in schools throughout the United States.

A new way to have students write is to work together – known as collaborative writing. There are many criticisms against collaborative writing and many people are uncomfortable with it. Darolyn Jones, author of Collaborative Writing: Priority, Practice and Process, says that many people work alone for several reasons. The first one is that many people cannot find time to meet with the rest of the group. Another reason is that each writer has their organization and own process of writing. When students are forced to work with others, they must adjust to the style of the group and get rid of their own. Many times there is a misunderstanding of what is expected of the students. The last reason, and the biggest one, is the fear of being criticized. Many writers do not feel comfortable sharing their work because they are afraid it will be torn down and disliked by readers and their audience.

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