Now that We've Been to School

By James N. Britton

Let me start off by saying that I considered Britton's work a relief after my struggle trying to wade through Moffet's style. This text was much more accessible to me. It took the author a bit of time to get to his central idea. Once he arrived, his model was more in line with the way I view the progression the student of writing goes through. It seemed more circular than linear. On my initial reading, I appreciated that the author didn't try to give more value one form of writing or another. I learned a lot about what we expect from our students as writers when we tried to categorize the writing assignments that we give during the school year. I realized in my own classroom I serve students poetic examples of writing and then turn around and ask them to produce a product that is closer to transactional. I'm sure my students have noticed this disconnect, but it took going through this exercise for me to notice. Only a few times a year do my assignments yield poetic writing. I am now looking for opportunities to incorporate more poetic writing into my classroom.