Time is the real currency of education, more valuable than space, equipment, or resources. Time is the primary way we invest in our students, and the decisions we teachers must make as to the use of time are often difficult. With so many “good” things we might do, along with tasks that demand our attention, excellent time management has become a fundamental skill needed by modern teachers. Unfortunately, we never seem to have enough time to accomplish all that we would or should do, which often creates stress that can be further exacerbated by pressure to prepare students for tests and evaluations. While the problem of time affects every teacher, it seems to weigh most heavily on those who teach writing because teaching it well takes time—both for the student and the instructor.
Some schools’ ambitions seem to outstretch the possible. Recently I met a teacher in a new school starting up this year, describing it thus: “We are going to follow the [school mandated] sequence for history, geography, and science; we have an emphasis on arts and music; we will be doing grammar, Spanish immersion, Latin in 7th and 8th grades, using a Socratic approach to literature, and discovery math; and of course we will be doing Excellence in Writing.” Why am I skeptical? In many cases schools which plan to do so much of everything will find it hard to accomplish much of anything. At another school, the 5th grade teacher has 40 minutes a week to teach writing, as each day is tightly scheduled—with “good” and necessary activities. But will 40 minutes be enough? So far it has not been, and some parents are asking, “What about writing?”
Sadly, in order to do something that we are not doing, we have to give up something that we are doing. If asked whether developing the skill of writing is important enough to justify sacrificing something else, most teachers and parents, administrators and board members would offer a qualified “yes.” Once it comes to the reorganization of schedules, however, they might hesitate. Where writing is tested, it becomes more of a priority, but even then objective evaluation is very difficult. One thing we know for sure: Many high schools, colleges, and universities are graduating students whose communication skills are insufficient for the demands of the business world. With pressure from the marketplace building, the need for better writing instruction is tangible. The curriculum is stretched. Something will have to change.
One attempt to solve this time crunch has been the idea of integration, or “writing across the curriculum.” By making writing the means to study content areas (social studies, science, literature, etc.) rather than a subject unto itself, two things can be accomplished: better learning of the subject and better writing skills. Unfortunately, this idea has not often been put into practice. Why? Three reasons:
1) Dis-integration of curriculum,
2) Lack of teacher training and initiative, and
3) Confusion about the nature of teaching three things: information, concepts, and skills.
Over the past four decades, schools have actually become more segregated in content, by age, and with faculty responsibilities. During the 1970s, the elementary teacher taught all subjects, and middle schools retained at least the idea of “homeroom” or ESS (English-Social Studies) double period, offering at least some opportunity to make connections between history, geography, biography, literature, grammar, and composition. Today, however, I have seen teacher specialization happening as early as third grade, and it is now very unusual to find middle schools combining any of the humanities. In fact, I have even noticed a trend of separating literature, grammar, and composition, either by period or semester. As the science, social studies, and math teachers willingly abdicate responsibility for teaching composition, the task is left to the English specialists, who often have only enough time to cover formal grammar and literature. No one is doing much writing.
A lack of writing in the content areas is further compounded by the lack of training for all teachers in basic composition skills. Most people assume that English teachers know how to teach writing because they are English teachers, but in truth they may not have a method. Subsequently, they fall back on commercial language arts workbooks that present grammar and usage as facts which can be memorized. However, in no way can books alone teach the skill of composition to human students. Meanwhile, the content area teachers are trying to balance the intellectual mastery of information with the “hands-on” learning approach so appreciated by children and parents. To take time for required writing, let alone to teach it, might endanger both their test scores and their reputations as “engaging” teachers. Even in the rare case where a school has several teachers who actually want to teach writing, there will likely be a lack of consistency in the form, method, and language of instruction. For a school to successfully integrate writing throughout the curriculum, sufficient investment in teacher training and support is essential.
Perhaps most significant, however, is the pedagogical confusion resulting from a lack of understanding about the differences between information, concepts, and skills. Information is taught primarily by memorization: vocabulary, dates, names, labels, facts. By using frequency, intensity, and duration of sensory input, students can learn the names of the presidents, the dates of a war, the conjugations of a verb, or the parts of a cell. Evaluating success is easy; tests and percentages give concrete feedback for both teacher and student. Concepts, however, are not facts. Concepts are deep ideas resulting from questions that man has pondered for millennia: liberty, responsibility, independence, beauty, justice. Concepts are never “mastered” the way facts can be, and consequently cannot be evaluated by multiple-choice tests and percentage-based scores. The understanding of concepts is built through dialog and conversation, reading and writing. It is hard to evaluate the learning of concepts effectively in an institution built around discussion groups of twenty or more students since a few students out of a group will inevitably dominate a conversation. (Note, however, that writing assignments give all students an opportunity to voice their understanding of a concept.) Skills must be learned by doing: swimming, painting, cooking, singing, writing. They are taught by coached practice and resemble a pathway to be traveled much more than a subject to be studied. This then, is the two-fold problem of time and training. Both are required if the skill of English composition is to be taught in a classroom.
Will it be worth the investment? Is teaching students to write well—to think and articulate—worth the effort? Some teachers know it is and are striving to do so. Other teachers know it is, but they cannot, or will not, buck the system. They cannot or will not give up one thing to do something else—even something as important as developing excellent communication ability. They are overcome by inertia. Still others neither know nor care. To paraphrase Edmund Burke: All that is necessary for the triumph of poor writing skills is for good teachers to do nothing. To continue to do what has always been done but to expect different results is disordered thinking. However, if it is time to get serious, to devote the effort that will bring certain gain, to begin a crescendo of writing and thinking aptitude in your classroom, we have a method that is guaranteed to work…if you will take the time.
