The "Conversation" of Teaching Writing

from “Why Teachers Should Also Write”
by Kate Kiefer
in the Academic Exchange Quarterly

In her article, Kate Kiefer, a professor of English and a teacher of composition and writing theory at Colorado State University, asks “[w]hy do teachers see writing as an important learning tool for students and not for themselves?” Teachers, as “insiders” to disciplinary writing, should not just “transmit” information about writing, says Kiefer, but acknowledge that the teaching of writing requires an apprenticeship between teacher and student writer. Writing is as important a learning tool for teachers as it is for students and serves as an "instructional tool for both the expert and the novice, insider and initiate.”

Instructors, Kiefer says, should not see their own writing as a separate endeavor from their teaching and research. To explain her approach to the teaching of writing model, Kiefer uses the metaphor of children at the holiday dinner table being initiated into the conventions of conversation—such as turn taking and logical transitions—to illustrate the give-and-take of writing instruction. In essence, writing instruction is an extemporaneous conversation between student and teacher. Writing skills develop, Kiefer says, as students move from the rudimentary organizational skills of constructing paragraphs to the “more sophisticated uses of discipline specific jargon and formats though sustained interaction with an insider who can reinforce conventional uses and discourage unconventional or disruptive communication.” As instructors actively hone their own craft of writing and observe the process, Kiefer says, they will be better able to communicate to their students what it takes to be a fine writer.

To read Kiefer’s article, visit the Academic Exchange Quarterly, Summer 2003: Vol. 7; Issue 2. www.higher-ed.org/AEQ/choice.htm.