Writing Instruction

During elementary school most of my writing instruction consisted of handwriting, spelling, grammar and conventions. For the most part the process was taught over the content. We were given a topic, went through the steps and received a good grade if there were no spelling or punctuation mistakes. I did have occasional teachers who included free write or journal time. This often made me very uncomfortable to not be told what to write about because it was so out of the ordinary.

As I entered the upper grades my writing instruction became even less creative. There was a formula to follow to produce "good" writing. I spent years feeling like a piece of writing could only be five paragraphs. No more no less. I can remember trying to find ways to make my ideas fit into my three body paragraphs. I had teacher after teacher who taught this method.

The writing instruction I between kindergarten and eleventh grade very much fit the traditional writing classroom model from Freeman and Freeman in Essential Linguistics (2004). The first classroom I was in which followed the process writing classroom model was my senior year of high school advanced composition class. This was the first time I was actually able to enjoy writing for a reason other than I knew how to get good grades in it. The writing had a purpose beyond learning the formula of good writing.