Almost one hundred years of research confirm that teaching grammar in isolation does not improve a student’s ability to write a compelling paper and yet that practice is pervasive. Decades of research reveal that giving kids lists of words to learn to spell does not solve spelling problems, yet the Friday spelling test is an institutional rock that isn’t budging. We know that purposeful writing, writing conferences, and writing portfolios are important, and yet too often teachers assign a topic, don’t confer with students, and think a folder with all the writing collected into it is a
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