Guarding Against Writing Orthodoxies

 

As renowned, researcher, writer and educator, Donald Graves said many times, ‘The enemy is orthodoxy!’

He rightly concluded that orthodoxies are trotted out as simplistic shortcuts to what we know are complex processes. Processes essential to the teaching of writing. Orthodoxies frequently develop from misconceptions and misunderstandings regarding the true nature of writing.

They become substitutes for genuine thinking. They present as evidence that thinking has been short circuited. They  most certainly mitigate against deeper thinking;  clouding the issue with often meaningless actions, jargon and expectations.  They frequently rise in direct opposition to the reality of writing practices. In this way they become a distortion of what writers actually do.

The rise of orthodoxies occurs when a teacher does not know the child writer, or the process of writing well enough to know what they are actually witnessing. They are frequently used by teachers as coping mechanisms in the absence of genuine writing knowledge. Orthodoxies compel teachers to tell, old, outdated stories about writing. 

Old stories like:

Every paragraph consists of five sentences. 

Sentences can't begin with ‘and.’ 

Adjectives arise before the noun.

There is a set number of draft copies that need to be undertaken in the journey towards sharing/publication.

They are also evident in the voices of young writers who tell me they can improve their writing by merely adding ‘more descriptive words.’ Throwing adjectives into a collection of words is a somewhat simplistic way of viewing improvement. It invariably leads to adjective pile ups.

A young learner once informed me, 'Cynthia Rylant has started a sentence with 'And.' My teacher told me, you can't do that.' 

The room, filled with teachers observing the lesson, suddenly stood to attention, waiting for my response.

'Once a writer knows the rules, they can start to play around with them and Cynthia has done this with the word -and. When you read this sentence, does it make sense to you?'

'Yes,' said the child. 'Then Cynthia has shown you another way to write...'

Classroom charts that trumpet ‘Words to use instead of said,’ stand as a perfect example of a well-intentioned, yet misguided orthodoxy.

Said is a perfectly apt word to use. The vast majority of our utterances are merely, said. Roald Dahl used said quite regularly. It did his writing no harm.  Would he now be called out for using this perfectly acceptable word? Other authors I admire, like Jerry Spinelli, Kate DiCamillo andTim Winton also appear quite comfortable with 'said.' 

A lot of dialogue is presented without qualifying how the words were presented. The reader is trusted to infer the tone.

Not everything needs to be ‘up-scaled’ for the sake of it. 

We must, however continue to teach sensitively and creatively and in accordance with the needs of young writers.

To guard against the rise of orthodoxies  we must allow young writers to teach us what they know and then teach into the gaps in their understanding. We adjust our teaching to fit the growth of that particular writer. This approach diminishes the likelihood of orthodoxies developing.

To further guard against the rise of orthodoxies  we, as teachers of writing must keep writing ourselves. As we grow to understand our own writing, we grow to understand what children are doing in their writing. We deepen our knowledge of writing by engaging directly in the process. That way our teaching becomes a process of constant discovery. We respond as fellow writers, aware of the need for meaningful responses based upon genuine evidence, not outmoded misconceptions of what we think writing might be.