Simplify the Teaching of Writing

"The older I get, the greater effort I make to get rid of the clutter, literally and figuratively." I love this quote on page 16 of Writing Essentials by Regie Routman. We do need to reduce clutter in our teaching lives, but the hard question is...how do we do it? It is easier said than done! As a teacher, it is extremely hard to prioritize because we feel so much pressure to "cover" the curriculum and do well on those assessments. The sad thing is, in many schools we are creating GREAT test takers, but not necessarily, great readers, writers, and thinkers! Can we have both? I believe we CAN! We just have to start working smarter, not harder and creating literacy environments where students WANT TO and are ABLE TO read, write, and think! Embedding test preparation into daily instruction is one way to work smarter. The reality is that we are held accountable for scoring well on the tests. Students will do better on those assessments IF we trust ourselves and embed test-taking prep into our everyday instruction. Another way to work smarter is to collaborate. I recently worked with a group of second and third grade teachers from Buhler, KS and they created mini lessons for each of their "BIG IDEAS" for writing. After about 4 hours of total time spent on creating them, they had over 50 mini lessons they could utilize in their classroom. Instead of going and buying an expensive book where they might use 1/3 or 1/2 of it, they worked together to create short lessons to do with their students. I love how she encourages us to bring joy back into our work, but I do believe we have to work together to figure out ways to work smarter!