Katie Wood Ray’s article, “Exploring Inquiry as a Teaching Stance in the Writing Workshop,” gave insight into a pedagogy that seeks to construct knowledge alongside students. As she demonstrated, this is the ideal way to teach writing as a craft—as grounded as any practice, with concrete materials—rather than as a formula. Even more remarkable is that, by examining the mechanics of more established writers and writing alongside them, I think that students might see themselves as a part of a community of writers. Often, creativity gets mixed up with the need to be “unique,” but this mentality can often be an intimidating hindrance and an obstacle to learning. At a time when writing is so important, yet so archaically taught, I found this stance to be a useful guide.

Leave a Reply