The Common Core State Standards are on everyone’s mind these days. For me, the positive impact of the standards so far has been a renewed interest in how we improve writing instruction in every classroom, at every grade, and in every content area. It’s hard work, and I welcome the energetic, enthusiastic national dialogue about writing.

To begin with, there is a harsh reality to address: What we’re doing in writing instruction now isn’t working. CCSS or not, changes need to be made. According to The Nation’s Report Card (NAEP, 2012), only 27 percent of eighth graders are proficient in writing and, of those students, only 3 percent are advanced. Consider the bigger number: 73 percent of eighth grades are not proficient. And the results for grade 12 are starkly similar: 24 percent proficient and 3 percent advanced. No improvement in four years? I’m sure you will agree that these statistics are dismal and simply not okay by anyone’s measure.

The implications are huge: Everything we do in writing must be examined for its effectiveness. All of our writing cards need to go on the table, and those that are not producing desired results should be discarded in favor of those that are. Five-paragraph essays, Friday spelling tests, out-of-context word practice, excessive prompted writing¾these are the types of practices that need to be rethought. In their place we should use methods that support many different learning styles, teach spelling skills in a variety of ways (using student writing for practice instead of worksheets), balance prompted writing with self-chosen topics, and so on. In other words, we should use best practices—or what I like to call, the 4Ws.

• Writing process: the recursive steps writers go through to generate text
• Writing traits: the language used to assess and teach writing
• Writing modes: the purposes for writing
• Writing workshop: the structure of the writing classroom

These are quick, thumbnail definitions, of course. But my point is that the effective teacher of writing embraces all four of the Ws, not just one or two—and there is a world of studies and reports that supports this claim: Writing Next, Because Writing Matters, Writing Now, Informing Writing, The Neglected R, among others. Years of well-documented research reveal why certain methods work better than others, but sadly, for many of today’s students, their writing education looks similar to students’ of past generations, with few if any Ws.

Writing instruction has been slow to change, in some measure due to its inherent complexity. It is, after all, thinking aloud on paper, and there is nothing easy about that. But it is possible to embrace that complexity and teach writing well, if we choose to. I believe students need diverse and multi-faceted teaching that focuses on how each of the 4Ws can help them improve. They need opportunities to apply the writing process (draft, edit, revise) extended pieces of writing over time. This work takes place in the writing workshop structure in which teachers conduct focus lessons (or mini-lessons), and students choose topics and work uninterrupted on their pieces, conferring with the teacher as needs arise. Trait-specific focus lessons develop specific, targeted skills, one at a time, so students learn how to revise and edit their work and take it to the next level. And, students’ longer, more extended pieces should rotate between the three modes of writing¾narrative, expository, and persuasive¾so they explore full range of purposes for writing. Each of the 4Ws adds substance to the writing classroom—and when we unite them, the whole becomes much greater than the parts.

So where do the CCSS fit into this long view of writing reform? The standards spell out what students should know and be able to do, grade by grade. The 4Ws are how we move students toward meeting them. As we explore the standards and their implications on teaching, see if you don’t agree that they clearly establish the need for the 4Ws to be fully operational in classrooms at every level and in every subject. The four categories of standards for writing are:

Text Types and Purposes
These standards focus on the modes of writing: expository, narrative, and persuasive (argumentative). They also address the different formats (structures) and genres (categories) of writing so students become knowledgeable of and adept at many aspects of writing.

Production and Distribution of Writing
These standards focus on the writing process. Revising (traits: Ideas, Organization, Word Choice, Voice, Sentence Fluency), editing (trait: Conventions), and publishing work using technology (trait: presentation) are key to improving writing over time.

Research to Build and Present Knowledge
These standards focus on writing to learn. Gathering information from multiple sources to express ideas, provide evidence, and support positions in the modes of writing: narrative, expository, and persuasive (argumentative) make this standard critical to the writing students do throughout their lives.

Range of Writing
This standard focuses on short- and long-term writing projects. Quick writes, short essays, journal entries, and responses to literature are but a few examples of short pieces. Longer, extended projects that last over several weeks in a writing workshop setting are equally important. They allow students to apply all steps in the writing process, confer with the teacher, and create multiple drafts before publishing a final copy.

p: ghm575 via photopin cc

Once again, this may be a simplistic interpretation of the standards, but you can see where I’m going with how the standards and 4Ws are inextricably linked. I believe the standards will be met in classrooms that apply the 4Ws. As educators everywhere tee up to meet the CCSS, let’s remember, “The Standards define what all students are expected to know and be able to do, not how teachers should teach” (CCSS 2010, p. 7). My advice: Work backwards from the big picture of what students should know and be able to do in writing, and each day zero in on best practices based on the 4Ws. Then and only then will students meet the CCSS—and as students succeed, we may discover the joy of teaching writing, too.

See Ruth Culham at IRA’s 58th Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas, where she will be part of the Invited Symposium, “Readin', Writin', and 'Rithmetic: Revisited Through the Common Core State Standards and Texas STAAR.” Her co-presenters include Greg Tang, Steven Layne, and Danny Brassell. Learn more at www.iraconvention.org.

Ruth Culham is the recognized expert in the traits of writing field and author of over 40 teaching resources published by Scholastic, including 6+1 TRAITS OF WRITING: THE COMPLETE GUIDE, GRADES 3 AND UP; 6+1 TRAITS OF WRITING: THE COMPLETE GUIDE FOR THE PRIMARY GRADES; and TRAITS OF WRITING: THE COMPLETE GUIDE FOR MIDDLE SCHOOL, winner of the 2011 Teacher's Choice award. As the author of TRAITS WRITING: THE COMPLETE WRITING PROGRAM FOR GRADES K-8 (2012), she has launched a writing revolution. TRAITS WRITING is the culmination of 40 years of educational experience, research, practice, and passion.



Top Literacy Experts to Discuss New Standards at IRA Convention

Teaching Tips: The Reading Makeover

Two fellow Nerdy Book Club members encouraged me to use this forum to share some thoughts about how to incorporate historical fiction in the classroom. I resisted the suggestion—what could I possibly tell the readers of this blog about teaching? Then it hit me: maybe simply sharing what I know about researching historical fiction would help you create new classroom connections. Shall we give it a go?

True confession: I haven’t always loved historical fiction. In fact, I avoided it. Until my then-preteen daughter got me hooked by bringing home Jennifer Armstrong’s THE DREAMS OF MAIRHE MEHAN and MARY MEHAN AWAKE. These stunning Civil War-era novels opened my eyes to how deeply compelling this genre can be.

Shortly afterward, I discovered Karen Cushman’s CATHERINE, CALLED BIRDY, with its delicious opening lines: “I am commanded to write an account of my days. I am bit by fleas and plagued by family. That is all there is to say.” I was gobsmacked, as Birdy might say. If that’s historical fiction, I’m in! I became a voracious reader of the genre and then, thanks to a snippet of a family story about my great-grandmother, I became a passionate writer of the genre, as well.

In addition to my Nerdy Book Club friends, I also sought advice from writing colleagues Barb Kerley and Mary Nethery. Mary’s a former educator and Barb’s done extensive work to tie her author presentations to the Common Core State Standards. Their input led me to one CCS standard that can readily be supported by donning the historical fiction writer’s hat: “Write narratives to develop real or imagined experiences or events using . . . relevant descriptive details . . .” (CCSS.ELA-Literacy.W.6.3).

A writer of historical fiction lives for relevant descriptive details. The trick is, of course, finding them. How do I do it? By relying on primary resources. I scour second hand stores and eBay and etsy and everywhere else I can think of for old diaries, letters and postcards, maps and atlases. I am the woman who buys all of those self-published memoirs at library sales, national park gift shops and roadside attractions. I dig through box after box in musty museum archives, as if searching for the big prize in a Cracker Jack box. I NEED the first-hand stories of ordinary people. Without them, I’m nowhere as a writer of historical fiction.

While researching HATTIE BIG SKY, I discovered the diary of young homesteader Vanity L. Stout Irving. She had written about her beau giving her a ruby ring for a wedding present “…which I made him take back. I said I would rather have a cow and three pigs.” Vanity knew what it would take to survive on the Montana prairie, way back when: Forget the bling; bring on the bacon! As a life-long city girl, I couldn’t make up a detail like that. Another diary I read included a ledger listing the diarist’s purchases during the year. From her records, I learned the price of a new pair of leather gloves in 1918 (85 cents).

A sensible wedding present. The price of a pair of gloves. These are relevant descriptive details. And it is just such specifics that bring past times and places to life.

Great news: many such details are to be had at the click of a mouse. Old newspapers provide insights into attitudes, daily life, and entertainments, fashions, costs, place names, etc. and are increasingly easy to access. Our county library system allows me to read historical newspapers from the comfort of my home office. I’m guessing you would have similar access, too, through your local library.

It was while reading through issues of the Seattle DAILY TIMES, circa 1920, that I learned about opera great, Luisa Tetrazzini, and her plans to take an aerial tour of Seattle. Shortly before take-off, her manager deemed the chilly air too risky for the diva’s voice, and an enterprising young woman reporter jumped at the chance to take Tetrazzini’s place. I borrowed these details (switching out San Francisco for Seattle) to give Hattie her first big chance at a byline in HATTIE EVER AFTER.

The Internet is a gateway to other resources. I’ve used the Densho Project, dedicated to preserving the stories of the Japanese Americans incarcerated during WWII; USGenWeb.com, a free, volunteer-run historical site; the Library of Congress American Memory Project; the Montana Memory Project, where I found an accounting of a 1916 road trip from Seattle to Boston; the Ames, Iowa Historical Society, which has scanned fabulous WWII resources, including ration books; the National Parks Service; the This Day in History feature at History.org; and, of course, the Oxford English Dictionary (via the Seattle Public Library—where would we be without libraries?!), which helps me ensure that the words I’m putting in my characters’ mouths fit with their time period. This is a small sampling of sites that can put primary sources at your students’ fingertips.

After you’ve introduced your students to these stores of relevant descriptive details, give them the opportunity to put their new research knowledge to work. Collect a handful of old postcards and then ask your students to write a narrative based on/inspired by one of them. In order to create historically accurate narratives, students would need to do some sleuthing about manners of speaking, food, dress, names and places during the time period of their postcard. There’s a wonderful collection of short stories for adults by Robert Olen Butler, HAD A GOOD TIME: STORIES IN AMERICAN POSTCARDS, that might give you additional ideas.

This school year, I have made a commitment to interview teachers and librarians each Tuesday on my blog; in October, I interviewed Brian Wilhorn about how he provides context for the books his students read through a classroom blog. For instance, for THE WATSONS GO TO BIRMINGHAM—1963, Brian posted historical photos of the 16th Street Baptist Church after the bombing, links to articles about that tragic event, and a current photo of the church. Through this blog, he’s doing two things I admire: giving his students a richer grasp of the literature they’re reading, and modeling curiosity. His digging to find more information can’t help but lead his students to do the same.

I would love to hear about a particularly powerful strategy you’ve used in your classroom to help incorporate historical fiction and would be honored to include such ideas in future Teacher Tuesday postings. Drop me a line—Kirby@kirbylarson.com.

Come see Kirby at IRA’s 58th Annual Convention in San Antonio, Texas! Kirby will be speaking at IRA’s Teachers' Choices Committee session, “Making a Difference for Readers, Writers, and Artists by Connecting them with Authors and Illustrators who Create Books that Inspire, Motivate, and Delight” on Monday, April 22, 2013.

After Kirby Larson heard a snippet of a story about her great-grandmother homesteading in eastern Montana, she went on to write HATTIE BIG SKY, winner of a 2007 Newbery Honor Award. This sequel was written in part to answer many questions readers posed about the irrepressible Hattie. Connect with the author on her blog (www.kirbyslane.blogspot.com) or via Twitter (@kirbylarson).



The Common Core: Showing Nonfiction the Love

Bringing the 'Story' Back into 'History'

photo: Andrea Cipriani Mecchi

About 25 years ago, on a cold January day not too different from today, I handed my completed Tragedy Paper to my high school senior English teacher Mr. Arthur Naething. It was the longest, hardest research paper I had ever completed—we had all been dreading and fretting over it since September. And now it was done—twenty-nine typed pages, plus a seven-page bibliography.

As the paper moved from my young, inexperienced hand to his sturdy, slightly wrinkled one, I wondered, had I defined a literary tragedy properly? Did I use enough examples of Aristotle and Shakespeare? Was my use of secondary sources strong enough? Had I made my point, and backed it up, when I declared that I did not believe tragedy could still be written in our time?

Then the paper was gone, whisked away with the rest of them, and I had to wait weeks to learn my fate.

I knew even then that this paper was slightly different from others I had written. After all, how often was I actually excited to turn in a big school assignment? When, before, had I not minded sitting down with books and notes and ideas, trying to make sense of it all? With all my other assignments, it had been a relief to turn them in and be rid of them. With this one, though, I found myself thinking about it, and wondering what Mr. Naething might think of this or that choice I made. Still, did I even begin to know how much—dare I use the word? —magnitude the paper was going to hold for me?

I definitely did not.

There was a lot going on for me that year. It was my second year at the Hackley School in Tarrytown, New York. I traveled by bus every morning to get there, across Westchester County from my home in Mamaroneck. Nothing terrible had happened to force my parents to make the change away from the school closer to my house, but it did seem like the last chance for something—the last chance to enjoy high school, the last chance to move from being a mediocre student to a better one, the last chance to figure out that learning could be more than just something I had to do. In the same way that Tim Macbeth, one of the main characters in my new young adult novel, THE TRAGEDY PAPER, finds himself at the Irving School grasping for that last opportunity to squeeze the joy out of high school, I found myself on that quad and in those classrooms in a similar situation.

By the time my senior year and my Tragedy Paper rolled around, I was in the groove. I had friends I loved, I was doing better than ever in school, and, for the first time, I felt like I belonged someplace that I could already see was special. Like the characters in my book, I walked under a stone sign that read, “Enter Here To Be and Find A Friend,” and I was dismissed from my English class each day with the words, “Go forth and spread beauty and light.”

I remember the day the papers were returned to us. They were spread out on a wooden table in the school’s main office. We ran to find our masterpieces. I had to thumb through the pages along with everyone else looking for my grade. And there, written in pencil, was a capital A with the sentence, “Your argument is valid and convincing.”

I had done it, and the strangest part to me at the time was how much I cared! I had completed the assignment and done the best job I could do. I had a huge sense of accomplishment, but no idea that it was really just the beginning of how often that paper would creep back into my thoughts.

Because of it, I was never afraid of a research paper in college; when I studied tragedy in a playwriting class, I was more prepared than anyone else. With some distance, I credit the paper for leading me to my first career as a journalist. That excited feeling I had for the first time when I sat on my yellow-carpeted bedroom floor as a teenager surrounded by books analyzing tragedy, I continued to have every time I returned to the newsroom with a full reporter’s notebook and a blank computer screen. And even now, as I sit down to write fiction.

When my agent suggested I try to write a young adult novel, I loved the idea. As the story formed in my head, the world of the Irving School unfolded and Mr. Naething’s words came back to me. And then there is was—that amazing Tragedy Paper that was going to take Tim and Duncan through their senior years, the Tragedy Paper that had gotten me through mine and so far beyond. It was like a magic gift that surfaced so many years later after having burrowed into my subconscious.

The words came tumbling out—magnitude first, of course, and then hubris, order and chaos, reversal of fortune—all the things that make a story great. It took more than a quarter of a century to finally see the full value of that assignment.

I recently wrote another blog post in which I talked about trying to worry less as an adult, something I was able to do as a teen. But my husband joked last night that I should have warned my teen self to take great care with my Tragedy Paper, knowing now how important it was, and continues to be, to my life. Echoing Tim’s words to Duncan at the beginning of my book, that paper would become the “meat” of my future novel.

Elizabeth LaBan worked at NBC News, taught at a community college, and has written for several magazines and newspapers. THE TRAGEDY PAPER is her first young adult novel. She lives in Philadelphia with her family.



Putting Yourself in Your Character’s Shoes (Sneakers, Ballet Flats or Boots!)

In Other Words: On a Writer's Journey, Finding a Fellow Traveler