Literacy Talks

Writing Matters: Integrating Reading and Writing Instruction

• Reading Horizons • Season 6 • Episode 4

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In this episode of Literacy Talks, the terrific trio discusses the importance of teaching reading and writing in tandem. They explore teachers' challenges in prioritizing writing instruction, from lack of confidence to limited time and resources. The conversation highlights effective strategies for embedding writing throughout the day, building student identity as authors, and providing explicit instruction in writing skills and processes. 

The hosts emphasize the need for a balanced, intentional approach that celebrates the joy of self-expression as growing readers develop their writing abilities. Tune in to gain valuable insights and practical tips to elevate the role of writing in your literacy programs.

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Narrator:

Welcome to Literacy Talks, the podcast for literacy leaders and champions everywhere, brought to you by Reading Horizons. Literacy Talks is the place to discover new ideas, trends, insights and practical strategies for helping all learners reach reading proficiency. Our hosts are Stacy Hurst, a professor at Southern Utah University and Chief Academic Advisor for Reading Horizons, Donell Pons, a recognized expert and advocate in literacy, dyslexia and special education. And Lindsay Kemeny, an elementary classroom teacher, author and speaker. Now let's talk literacy.

Stacy Hurst:

Welcome to another episode of Literacy Talks. My name is Stacy Hurst, and I'm the host. I'm joined by Donell and Lindsay, as I am every week, and today we get to talk about a very fun, I think, fun topic. I'm looking forward to this conversation for two reasons, because the topic is awesome, and Donell always does such a good job of guiding the conversation. So Donell, I will let you introduce the topic and just jump right in.

Donell Pons:

Great. Okay, on that note, no pressure. We'll get right into the conversation. You guys know I love to write because my first career. We'll go eons back, and I'm not going to tell you how many years, but first career involved writing, and I worked for a local newspaper and worked as a reporter, and obviously learned a lot about writing, particularly writing under pressure, and thoroughly enjoyed it. Loved to hear a good story. Love to tell a good story. Love the progression of a story. Didn't realize just how fortunate I had been to have some really good teachers in my past that had really helped me. It really set me up for success. And looking back, wondering if I still would have ended up being able to have that experience had I not had those particular teachers, and thinking, Hmm, that's that's kind of interesting. That would be the luck of the draw to get some good teachers that felt comfortable writing, felt comfortable teaching writing. And then that made me also think about as I had my own children and students facilitating their ability to write. So I'm not sure I've shared very often that I worked for a period of time as an advisor for a high school newspaper, because I love newspaper writing. It was fantastic. Great experience. Really interesting to me that I saw very similar things happening. If students had had a background with with writing, involved in it in one way or another, they were better set up to even think about being on a school newspaper. Likewise, I had some students in some classes, and I thought you would make a great reporter. You ask really good questions. You're so engaged, you're really curious, how about writing for the school newspaper? And the students would always say, Oh no, I'm not comfortable doing that. I would not be comfortable doing that. And with lots of encouragement, I mentored a few onto the paper, and they went on to have a great time. And it made me think about how important that really intentional mentoring of writing is to a lot of students. In fact, I would say to most students. So the conversation today is going to be about reading and writing, teaching them both, teaching them both with great intention and simultaneously, and introducing the concepts of writing and being a writer much earlier in a student's academic career. Let's put it that way. So we're talking about all the spaces K on up. We're talking about all the spaces wherein writing can be introduced with intention. So this is gonna be fun for me, because we have Stacy, who is in our pre service space, very much aware of what's being taught to teachers. And I have Lindsay, who's in that early space. And Lindsay, you've done a lot of traveling around to in the last while. So this will be a really good conversation. Your observations, things that you can bring to the conversation. But I want to also reference there's an article we're going to kind of have as our background that got me thinking about it from Education Week. And we'll put a link so everybody can look at it. And the topic is, how does writing fit into the science of reading? And right off the bat, it jumps into that first paragraph, saying, in one sense, the national conversation about what it will take to make sure all children become strong readers, has been wildly successful. So it's talking about how great this has been to talk about how we get kids reading. States are passing all kinds of legislation supporting evidence based teaching approaches. School districts are rushing to supply training. Publishers are under pressure to provide better things that are more in line with what we know, but writing, not so much, not a part of the conversation. So what's happening with writing, and why isn't it part of the conversation when we talk about reading? I'll put that out to both of you, Stacy and Lindsay, how come writing hasn't been part of the conversation? Or if it has been, how has it been part of the conversation? For you.

Stacy Hurst:

You know, I'm just gonna, I'm gonna venture a guess based on my experience in higher ed and my experience as a pre service teacher myself, we weren't taught how to teach writing. I don't recall. That. And I think even more than teachers are sometimes reticent about teaching reading and their knowledge about it, I think they're even more reticent about teaching writing. That's what I think. Lindsay, what do you think?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, absolutely agree. Stacy, teaching writing is hard. It is probably one of the hardest things to teach. And like Stacy said, I didn't have a course on how to teach writing in college, and there's very little professional development trainings, I think, out there, or, you know, made available, easily available to teachers on writing instruction. And so I definitely feel like there's a gap. I also think I mean teaching writing is hard and just writing is hard, so a lot of us as adults struggle. I think, you know, getting your ideas, formulating them, and putting them into writing. So I think all of those things combined is a lot of times why that is missing. Additionally, I think since writing is so hard and since teachers are days are I mean, time is always a barrier in the classroom, and so we don't give enough time for writing instruction, I think, in our day. And it's really easy to say as a teacher, well, I don't have time, especially when it's so hard to teach, you know. So I think all those things combined is kind of why writing, you know, hasn't gotten the attention it deserves.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, I love both your responses, because I think they're pretty typical. I think a lot of people probably nodding their heads if they're listening to what both of you have said. I think it's interesting, when you talked about time, even in the article, you'll find there's a quote from Wiley Blevins. A lot of folks are familiar with Wiley Blevins in the reading space, and he says that pencils should be in hands most of the day. They shouldn't be setting the pencil down, because, like you say, time is of the essence. You only have so much time, and we need to get these skills down. I also think both of you touched on something about writing that is unique, fairly unique. It's a really challenging cognitive load when you think about performing what we call writing, you have to think of all of the things you want to write about. So you're doing a lot of, you know, the the organizing and coming up with the information in the back. There may be research involved. There's just a lot to it's a process, and we often think about it only in terms of, well, when a student is ready, meaning they have the skills to be able to write something down, then we'll do that thing when really it's a series of preparation to get to do the thing, from transcription, being able to form letters correctly do it, to mastery. So now that loads been lifted, another cognitive load has been lifted. So we'll get into a lot of these things that are layers. But I wanted to put this quote out here for you guys to get you to think about it. This is from Stephen King, an author, many know, this is a quote he has, if you don't have time to read, you don't have the time or the tools to write simple as that. So hearing that from Stephen King, what do you guys think again with students and giving them the time to get those skills,

Lindsay Kemeny:

you've got to make the time, and definitely you're integrating writing throughout the day, and there's so many different components of writing, like you were saying, Donnell, and especially, you know, as a first grade teacher, we are still, you know, becoming automatic with the letter formation. So students have to kind of pause and think about how to form the letters. They have to think about spelling and and that phonemic awareness, breaking it down. These are skills that we're all still working on and developing. And then they have to think about what they're going to write about, and organizing their thoughts, having their thoughts, organizing them, and getting those down on paper. And so there are, because there's so many different elements of writing, you can embed them, like at different points right throughout the day. But I think Additionally, we need to make time in our block for just writing. So like, Yes, I'm embedding writing during our phonics lessons, right? And our close reading lessons, but I also need to have a time dedicated to writing where we can be talking about and maybe we'll get into this more. I don't want to jump ahead, but where we're getting into, like, the structure of sentences and paragraphs.

Donell Pons:

Yeah. What do you think, Stacy?

Stacy Hurst:

I was just thinking about how well I'm reflecting back to my first grade teaching, and I did embrace Writer's Workshop. Luckily, I was also teaching explicit systematic phonics, but looking back on how I did writing in my classroom, I would have done it differently. Okay, one thing that I think was good about that approach to writing was identity as a writer. I think most of us would readily identify as a reader, but how many of us identify as a writer? Now, you two for sure, because you've written books and articles, lots of them, I'm more of a reader than I am a writer currently, and then also I but I wanted my students to identify as a writer and author, but they need the skills to do that. And I think for every component of writing, just like Lindsay was talking about for every component of reading, sorry, there's a writing buddy, there is something because it's the inverse process, right? So being intentional about including that every step of the way is important, and then also, in the same way we want to provide time for students to read connected text, we want them writing connected text to whatever format that is in and whatever instruction we need to provide to help them to do that well. So yeah, there's a lot that goes into it, but I think if we just it might help those of us who don't feel confident in that space to think of it as a step by step, like it's a parallel process. It's not separate from I

Donell Pons:

like that quote from Stephen King. That's why I like it when he said, when you're reading right, you're setting yourself up for writing. But likewise, it got me thinking about, what about our students who are having challenges or difficulties becoming readers? Because we do have in every classroom percentage, and I have family members right for a specific reason, who struggle to acquire that skill of reading. And so if you're trying now to attach this other skill that we know is so important, writing to reading, well, how challenging or difficult can that become for the student where Reading isn't really coming for them? What do you guys think,

Stacy Hurst:

by the way, that Stephen King is that from on writing, the book that he wrote, called on writing, is just a Yeah, yeah. It's my favorite Stephen King book. I recommend it to anyone. I read it as a first grade teacher and was inspired a lot, but yeah, so the question, I think there's a lot in the same way that when we read aloud to a student who might struggle with reading, they can have conversations about the text and the ideas surrounding it. I think the same way with writing, if we have a transcription device, they have thoughts, they can organize them in speech, then maybe we provide supports in the meantime for them to get them on paper.

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Donell Pons:

You know, Lindsay, this has been a thought for me, and I know it is for you, too, that our students who are struggling with reading, if we attach writing to reading while they're really working hard to oh, this reading is difficult, if we're attaching writing to it, how can we support those students where reading may still be difficult to all to feel confident about writing. What can that look like? Well,

Lindsay Kemeny:

for one, you're not just sending them off and just giving them a prompt, right and too long, and that is like my mistake, I think, from years ago, before I understood is that my writing instruction was really not instruction. It was like giving them a prompt and then expecting them to write. So we need to properly support them and instruct them, and then realize that as they're writing, that is going to help their reading. So these, you know, brand new first graders are just, you know, barely learning CVC words. Well, we're going to be writing CVC words. They're going to do the inverse, and then it's going to help the and then we're going to go back and read what we just wrote. And this is just, you know, one way we're starting at that basic level, we can do reading and writing, reading and writing, and we can flip back and forth between decoding and encoding in our phonics lessons. Yeah, I like it throughout the day, right? But

Donell Pons:

yeah, yeah, throughout the day. I like that too. Yeah. So morning to afternoon and let kids have events, things that occur throughout the day, so they can write about them that might be interesting, too. It's the ways in which we can incorporate thinking it. As a life skill, which means it should be informing right throughout our life, which is interesting,

Lindsay Kemeny:

so and so. A lot of that, like in that the phonics lessons, we're working on a lot of that transcription, okay, but then the other side, there's also just crafting a sentence and putting it together. And at the beginning of the year in first grade, we do this a lot orally. So, you know, we read a story, and then after the story, we're going to generate what's called a gist statement, or main idea statement. And you know, I start by teaching a who and a do, a sentence needs a who and a do, and then that might expand a little bit, because it might not be a who, it might be a what, especially if we're doing like, an expository text. What is the text about and what's the important thing about the text? Right? So I will put up on my whiteboard, you know, I have a little label that says Who or what, and then, you know, the do, like do, what, or what's the most important thing about it. And we will discuss the text. I will label the who, then I will label the do. And then we're going to talk all together about different ways we can combine those into a sentence, and we're not we're just keeping it oral at this point. So I'm going to give an example. Then they're going to turn to their neighbors, and they're going to come up with a sentence with their partner, and then we're going to come back all together and share some of those sentences in the different ways we could have done that, right? And so this is taking, you know, away some of that heavy load of actually writing right now, and we're just orally constructing these sentences, and then we can add in, aware, right? Yeah, and that's as far as we've gotten so far. It's, uh, it's September right now, when we're recording this. Then we're going to add in, like, a linking word and like a why, yeah.

Donell Pons:

So what I love about this is the construction, as you can see. So if maybe you were thinking to yourself, geez, this sounds difficult and where to begin, you can already see how Lindsay helping you, see how you can link it to the instruction that's occurring with their reading right? And then here's what we might do. We'll start out orally, so we're doing the pre write. Pre write might last a little longer when the students are younger, but that pre write is vital to get those students thinking of themselves as writers, right. You can't write something if you haven't thought about it. Those two things are definitely connected. So I love how you're breaking that down for teachers. I also want to think a little bit about when you said the who and the do this is a little bit like journalism this. I found this to be the most approachable way. When I would be given a class and it would be, you know, middle school students, or, you know, high school students, it worked really well. And it is talking about how you have a newspaper article The lead is what you get the first paragraph, what? What's in the lead. It's always those questions, who, what, when, where, how and why. We might break that down and answer just a few of those questions, and then you can add to make sure you're getting a full body lead into that story. But again, this is like oral storytelling too. So I love that fact, Lindsay, that you're saying this can all be done orally, because who runs into the house saying if they've seen something exciting outside, not giving you the who and what's going on, right? The Who and the do. And so we're all capable of doing that, as long as we can attach it to what we know. Stacy, this has got to be particularly difficult when you have pre service teachers. Do you ever end up having conversations about writing, or is there sort of this weariness to that? What do you think?

Stacy Hurst:

Well, I'll tell you we're luckily we get to add another class to our pre service offerings, and it will be required, but we had to add it because we didn't have a class specific for pre service teachers focusing on writing. So I haven't had I know my students are reticent about it, and I have tried to address it as we go along and teach, like Lindsay was talking about the way I did it in my classroom. Would just have it, you know, the parallel to what you're teaching and reading. But yeah, they, they are a little bit hesitant

Donell Pons:

and Stacy. Let's dive into that a little deeper. Why are they hesitant? Have you gotten to be able to have those conversations just to find out why? Well,

Stacy Hurst:

I think it's cyclical, right? I know students who have been in AP English who still feel not confident because they didn't get the feedback specifically on their writing, and so they don't know if their writing is good or not. Oh,

Donell Pons:

boy, that found that interesting. They don't know if their writing is good or not. Okay,

Stacy Hurst:

yeah. Whereas reading, I know you can tell if you're a good reader or not, you know that right? Like you're getting meaning out of the text and and writing, you're definitely, I think most of my students are good at putting thoughts on paper, organizing a different story, right? And they just have varied background in this. So I think again, it's really important to address with this, with pre service teachers. You. Because they're they will be teaching these things. Yeah.

Donell Pons:

So it goes back to that pre write Lindsay that you were talking about, there's not, apparently, not a great deal of confidence, because that's the basics that Lindsay You were laying out. We'll do the conversation about what it is that we're going to be discussing, and then we'll start with the who and the do. So that's the organization piece already starting out for your students. And then Lindsay, you said you like to organize into sentences, and then eventually you'll be moving into a paragraph, right?

Lindsay Kemeny:

Yeah, we're actually already working on paragraphs so, like, we don't have to wait. We can be working on sentence level and paragraph level at the same time. I don't know it's really fun. I used to hate writing, and now I love teaching, teaching writing. And now I love teaching writing.

Donell Pons:

Oh, I love to hear that. That's fantastic. I'm going to throw down another quote, because it's right at this point you've, you've made me think of it. There's an author. His name is Brian McDonald. He's a screenwriter. He's author of a book called Invisible Ink. I highly recommend if you want to get into really how to tell a really good story. But here's a quote from him, and he also has dyslexia, which I think is an interesting thought. He said, at their most essential stories are about survival. At their most essential stories are about survival. What do you guys think about that? I

Stacy Hurst:

Well, one thing we do teach for reading and writing is story structure, right? To recognize it and then use it. But even in a simple story, you're surviving a problem, right? You're figuring out your way through it. So that makes sense at first when you said that, I thought, well, that's really deep, and probably a little too deep for first graders, but not really, because you're talking about these problems you need to overcome Exactly.

Donell Pons:

We pass on survival information all the time in writing, right? It's those stories about, Oh, watch out for this, even our fables or tales, right, which kids are very familiar with. It's always somebody imparting a nugget of information, a nugget of wisdom, to somebody else, to help them coming down the path, which I think is interesting, and helping our students get that love for it too, because they all have information that's valuable to everybody else. How can they impart that information? Lindsay, what's one of the topics your kids love to write

Lindsay Kemeny:

about, well, I don't know, we usually the topic. When we're doing our informational writing, we're usually writing about what we're learning about. And so most recently, we were, we in our close reading, have been learning about the digestive system, and so we've been writing about the digestive system and going through the different parts and explaining what happens to food when it enters your body, and how the body turns it into fuel. And so they've been really excited. Of course, I'm helping them as we go along, and it's fun to see them just be really proud, I guess, of the paragraph we're putting together. Lindsay,

Donell Pons:

I love that they're writing about things they're learning about and they're excited about that. That's fantastic. Love it.

Stacy Hurst:

You know, one thing that was really exciting for my first graders was different formats or forms of writing. So on Scarborough's reading rope, we have literacy knowledge. We're teaching genres. But in my first grade class, we started with signs and then lists, but they were all very meaningful to their own lives, right? And then when we taught story structure, then they were putting them in a structure that would follow, you know, a certain pattern, information text. They would write informational text when we learned about it. So we always learned about it, model it, show it ahead of time. And then they would be able to create their own. And the topics were so varied, it just depended on the student, right? But I will tell you they were passionate about it, and I taught writing right before afternoon recess, and I think I've shared it on this podcast before, but we took a class vote frequently, because our writing time would come into recess, but my students would more often than not, choose to keep writing than go to recess, because they just loved expressing themselves that way.

Donell Pons:

Oh, I'd love to hear that

Lindsay Kemeny:

Stacy mentioned something. I can't remember how you were, Stacey, but you were saying, like, they were looking at samples or something. And I was just going to point out that's a big part, because remember earlier, Stacy, you also were saying that your pre service teachers, like, don't know if they're good writers, and that's where a good model comes in. And so, and I have to give a shout out, because all my writing instruction, I have learned from, think srsd. So a lot of these ideas, that's where I learned them, but they talk about exemplars, and so a big part during the week, it's just. Show students an exemplar piece of text, and preferably one that is, you know, that someone their grade level could be capable of doing. And so every week, you know, with our whatever we're writing about that week, I will show them a exemplar or sample text, and we can read it and we can analyze it and we color code and score it, which is a whole nother thing, but so that they can look deeply at a text and then look also at theirs to determine what goals they have for the next week.

Donell Pons:

Boy, I love that. And you know, we've given a lot of ideas just kind of dropped in here, sprinkled throughout the conversation, but particularly in those younger grades, as you say, is they're learning more about the the encoding, how do I spell these words? How to spell them correctly, some patterns to be familiar in order to get those words down. Maybe I'm broadening my vocabulary at the same time, hopefully, so that you're gaining some some information about the words and how to use them. Then we've also got the, what we call the transcription skills, being able to form the letters. And maybe that's just on a, you know, CVC word, that we're learning how to really form those letters well. And then maybe I'm putting a couple together, because I'm doing a who and a do. So maybe have a subject and an action that go together, and then we can build out there from a sentence. Maybe I'll start orally with a conversation about something before we build before. That's a great pre writing skill. And these things can be done in tandem with our phonics lessons, right, as you guys were both pointing out, and that dictation piece, and that can be expanded as the students gain a better skill. And then we got into that creative side. We've kind of touched on it a little bit. So as we're learning these very, very good technical skills, which we need. And as you said, Lindsay, we need examples, exemplars, and so often that might come from a really good piece of reading. And so we're having that feedback loop that Stacey, you mentioned many times in your conversation about the reading informing the writing. Stephen King mentioned it himself, saying, if you got it that reading is so important to that writing to fill your toolbox. And then also we talked about really tapping into a student's interest, that telling their survival story, right? Being able to impart some information, maybe some wisdom, some truth, to somebody else. These are really exciting. When you guys put it this way, don't you want to be involved in one of these classes and do some reading and writing?

Stacy Hurst:

It's one of the things I miss about first grade so much, and then, even when you focus on writing processes, which we haven't even talked about yet, there were a couple of things I really noticed with my first graders, because we started with exemplars, and because we do read alouds every day, and they see books, they know what it is, they know what an author is, and they want to be one. So once you've actually taken their writing through the process and published things, no matter how simple it is, they are so proud of that. The other thing I would really I really noticed this as I taught first grade, my students were so willing and wanted to share their writing, they wanted to sit on that author's chair and read aloud what they had written. And I look at my college students now, that is oftentimes the very last thing they want to do. So somewhere, we have lost that confidence of sharing what you're writing for probably a lot of reasons, but I think there's power in that, because you're talking about survival stories, Donnell, somebody's got to hear them, right? There's got to be a receiver of that information and wisdom. So full circle.

Donell Pons:

Yeah, absolutely. You know, it made me think Stacy, when you were saying that of a particular student that I had that was in a high school setting, and it was in a journalism class, and I'd just been asked to come in and just give a little advising for the day. And this student stood out to me, because prior to the class coming in, the teacher said, Oh, I've had writing from all the students, except for this one particular student, he's been through the class now two terms, never produced a thing. Hasn't written anything. And I said, So what grade? Well, that's just it. They keep taking a failing grade because they're never writing anything. And I thought that is crazy. First of all, my first thought was, why would you keep taking the class? Clearly you wanted, you wanted this to work. That's That's what that told me. And then the determination right to show up and take a failing grade just to come again to the class. So I was obviously intrigued when this student came in and sat down. Everybody's doing their story ideas, popping out story ideas. And so I just lean over because he's been rather quiet, and said, So what story idea do you have? Tell me something and very quietly, kind of tentatively, lays out there. Well, I really am interested in movies. And I'd really like to maybe write something about a movie review. And there's the Sundance Film Festival, and I actually went to it. I'm like, Oh, you went to the Sundance Film Festival. Tell me what the day was like. And he kind of looks at me curiously, like, What do you mean? What's so was it? Was it snowing that day? It's cold that time of year, snowing. I mean, quiz, just this quizzical look on his face. And I say. Yeah, tell me about the day. What did it look like? Did you drive a car? Did you ride a bus? So he kind of like, Oh, all right. So no, it was snowing, and I had a sibling with me, and we were driving up the canyon. It sets the whole scene. And I said, Oh, man, you've got your lead right there. I think you've got a great lead. It was snowing. You're driving up the candy. His eyes light up like, this, is it? This is how you do it. As he jot some notes down. Here we go. And it got him going. But he's telling his survival story, right? He's telling his experience. He's imparting some wisdom, some information. I've never been I said I haven't been up the canyon to go do that. You're giving me vital information. And I'll tell you by the end of the period this kid had his first story, he had written his first story. It just took that. That's the other thing I'm thinking about. Is Lindsay, when you talk about these nuggets, these opportunities that you're giving your students, I call them nuggets. They're gold to these students to be able to get them into the writing process. It's fantastic. So we

Lindsay Kemeny:

need to teach them strategies for the writing process as well. And a quote from that article, they said, you know, students need to be explicit, taught explicitly the skills and the strategies of writing. And we have lots of different strategies. We have strategies to teach them about the writing process, strategies for organizing like the different genre, whether they're, you know, doing an expository or a narrative self regulation, strategies. So we're teaching them things like goal setting and scoring so that they can set a goal. And, you know, we do something called self talk, where they are using positive self talk, kind of these words of affirmation to keep themselves going, or whatever they need help with, if they keep thinking about how it's lunch in 10 minutes, then they are, oh, remember, I gotta focus. Think about my writing. Think about lunch later or whatever. But it's really kind of neat to see like for each piece we do every week, we talk about, you know, what's your favorite thing to say to yourself to keep yourself going? And we've brainstormed ideas, and so they pick their favorite and they'll write it on the bottom of their paper to remind them, like, it's like you got this or keep going, or you can do it, you know, just different little phrases. And just remind them to keep telling themselves that, because, you know, our internal voice can be really negative sometimes. And I tell them like, even with myself, I'll be like, I had to write yesterday, and I just kept thinking, I don't want to, I don't want to. And then I was like, oh my goodness, you know, even Mrs. Kemeny needed to use self talk and say, Oh, you can do it, you know, just do it for 15 minutes and you can keep going. Just get started. You know, all those things.

Donell Pons:

And I love that modeling that you just talked about, of you saying just like I did with the student, like, Tell me more. You're getting me into this story. And Stacy, you've mentioned something too about losing this desire to want to share stories. Because you brought up something really important, Lindsay with the self talk, because you're right, very quickly a negative voice can set in. Oh, nobody wants to hear this that isn't written very well, and you don't even need anybody outside to tell you anything negative about what you're writing. So Stacy, have you got any strategies or ideas about that keeping that going? Because I loved your putting the children or the student in the author's chair and letting them be the author and tell their own story. These are great ideas to keep that going. So

Stacy Hurst:

I think one important aspect of that would be the feedback they get right. And I had to train my class to say, you know, you're going to say two positive things about their writing. And interestingly, oftentimes it would be about the strategies that we learned right, or sometimes the content that they were sharing, and then one suggestion for the student to improve their writing and just to install in them. It is a process. And so you're not going to write something perfectly the first time you write it, you're going to revise, and you can always revisit and revise. There are many different ways you could say the same thing that would be structurally accurate, right? And Lindsay, as you were talking, I was thinking, you're already preparing your students for deadlines, for writing deadlines, right? Like we do one a week. You know, you have to get this done this week. There is some of that stress involved, so making sure that they're well prepared to manage that. Yeah, writing to a timeline, you're right, yeah. And I think just maybe like, sorry, Donnell, I just, I loved the question, but also celebrating it there's and really helping them to identify as an author, you're writing, you've written a piece, you know, whatever that turns out to be, but

Donell Pons:

celebrate, I like exposing the students to all the different voices, because, as you say, maybe I have a preference for a different kind of voice. That doesn't mean it's bad, or that somebody else's is boring, or anything like that. It's just sometimes we have personal preferences so that exposure to all of those writers voices to be able to hear them and say, Oh, I really identify with this one. Oh, that one doesn't really speak to me. That's okay. Doesn't have to, right? Because we all have. Very unique voices, or should have it's really interesting for different types of writing that's a student. As students get older, we introduce them to different types of writing. Well, who's my audience? What is it I need to convey all of those things that, again, need to be taught very intentionally. So, as we've already touched on so many times in this conversation, this could be a huge conversation, and we've just tried to really in this podcast, give you a taste of what we're starting to see is a lot more conversation around intentionally teaching writing with as much background support and research and evidence where we can as we are reading, and how important they are in tandem. And that at some point, and there was made in the article. Maybe it was the, you know, the National Reading panels, 2000 that emphasized reading, that we got away from writing. Who knows? But for whatever reason, we've kind of separated these two. And there really are, should be very much together. Lindsay's brought up some great examples. We've given her opportunity to kind of showcase some of the things that are happening in her classroom. And then, Stacey, you too, talking about kind of this evolution, maybe history of how we've done writing in the past, maybe how we're doing it in the future, maybe how some of our pre service teachers might feel about teaching it in the future. Here with our reading, this has been a great conversation, and I hope we get to have another one about reading and writing.

Stacy Hurst:

Yeah, I do too. Great. Summary, Donnell, just like a good newspaper, right article writer would do. And I do want to say I also appreciate that we got to infuse joy into this right like students love when they can, they can write and express themselves in writing, but equally important, they need to be able to have the technical aspects covered as well. So appreciate that you brought all of that out in what we're saying. And I am looking forward to seeing where writing takes us in the next few years, because I know we all know it's important to focus on, and I yeah, I'm interested to see how that how that conversation carries on, and we'll have other conversations related to that. So thank you for the conversation today, Donnell and Lindsay and thank you to our listeners who joined us this week. Hopefully you'll join us next week for another episode of Literacy Talks.

Narrator:

Thanks for joining us today. Literacy Talks comes to you from Reading Horizons, where reading momentum begins. Visit readinghorizons.com/literacytalks to access episodes and resources to support your journey in the science of reading.