Scott's+thoughts+about+the+writing+process

I feel like the majority of the literature points to a nonlinear model for processes amongst are students. They have a lot of different techniques, patterns, and necessities that simply aren’t catered to by prompts and timed writings. We put students skills into a bubble of performance that causes them to consolidate and eventually eliminate certain features of their writing. Our restrictions are meant to bring out creativity, thoughtfulness, and ingenuity; but no tests seem to really back this. How many of us do our best work under pressure situations? Certain athletes, doctors, and others… but these are just kids! I do agree with the fact that knowing the writing process does not translate to implementing it in a way that really helps our students. We can explain our point of view to administrators, parents, and ourselves; but at the end of the day we lose sight of what the writing process is supposed to look like and tend towards more standardized writing that puts students in a corner. I still go back to the idea of the teacher as a coach. We aren’t just lecturing from an ivory tower, we need to be side by side in the instruction process when it comes to writing. How does giving a prompt (Pretend that you are six inches tall when you wake up to start your day. What happens… This actually was a prompt for my 8th grade writing test) and watching as they write it, and then editing their mistakes fit into that image as a coach? I’m not so sure that it does