Topic: Does Teaching Matter?

10-Second Review: You need a combination of direct and indirect teaching.

Title: “From the Editor” (Sandra Stotsky). Research in the Teaching of English (May 1995), 132. A publication of the National Council of Teachers of English (NCTE).

Quote: “In essence, they [the articles in this issue of the journal] tell us that teaching matters.”

Quote: “These studies clearly indicate that active teaching influences how students learn to write or write to learn. They do not show students developing naturally as readers and writers as a result of informal conversations with peers or teachers in a literacy-rich environment.”

Quote: "…the physical arrangements of the classroom…the comments for their students about their writing, the different kinds of writing assigned to the students, a stress on both content and process, explicit guidance on matters of form, and lessons on skills. In sum, direct and indirect instruction were part of each teacher’s repertoire.”

Comment: A good, middle-of-the-road, commonsense approach to teaching writing. RayS.

The purpose of this blog is to share interesting ideas from English education journals from the past.