Course Description
This course is an introduction to the theory and practice of teaching writing, focused on practices in high school. We’ll start with an examination of “best practices” in teaching writing. Because you may not have experienced for yourself many of these practices, we will enact them as we read. Then we’ll turn to what teachers are actually doing, especially with diverse student populations found in almost every school district in the Puget Sound area. We’ll take that a step further with a group project designing unit plans based on the group’s research into a particular school and school district’s student population. In the final section, we’ll take up the issues of assessment of writing, especially as they are relevant to teachers in Washington. At the same time we consider barrier assessments, we’ll also examine the assessments specific students will face in the move to college–what “writing” tests do community college students take? How relevant are the AP English tests to what colleges expect? What kind of writing do students do in first year composition.

You’ll be writing response papers to the readings every other day, produce a group project on writing curriculum, and write a final empirical paper on some aspect of writing or writing instruction.

Texts
Readings packet