thesisthoughts

This useful article discusses what we have learned about writing in the last 20 or so years. Although there is nothing really new here, the article is well organised and I will definitely use it in my work with teachers.

Points relevant to my thesis are:

1. Rief emphasises the importance of teachers doing research  the classroom. She stresses the worth of what teachers have to say.
2. “…not every teacher and student is as engaged in writing as they could be, or should  be. University courses and staff development for teachers must offer more opportunities for teachers to write if the goal is to produce the best teachers of writing” (p. 38).
3. Teachers “need to write – with passion, with conviction, with honesty, with voice – to show what does and does not work with our students. Writing gives voice to the educators who know kids best, because we work with them every day. Our own writing lets us understand what we are asking our students to do. Writing puts energy back into our teaching lives because we have real reasons to write for a real audience” (p. 38).

 Rief, L. (2006). What’s right with writing. Voices from the Middle, 13(4), 32-39. Retrieved from http://proquest.umi.com

This entry was posted on April 23, 2008 at 1:42 am and is filed under teacher-writers, teaching writing, writing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.