Confronting the Literacy Stampede

By Kathie Marshall

As part of a new partnership, teachermagazine.org is publishing this regular column by members of the Teacher Leaders Network , a professional community of accomplished educators dedicated to sharing ideas and expanding the influence of teachers.

What I love about teaching writing is there's always something new to learn. So whether you're relatively new to the classroom or an experienced teacher who loves crafting ever better lessons, Kelly Gallagher's new book speaks to you. In Teaching Adolescent Writers (Stenhouse Publishers), Gallagher, an English teacher and co-director of the South Basin Writing Project at California State University–Long Beach, builds on two earlier popular works, Reading Reasons and Deeper Reading . It's an easy book to read, sprinkled with humor, yet chocked full of pertinent research and theory and infused with practical mini-lessons that can improve students' ability to write.

Gallagher begins with an analogy that likens students without writing proficiency to people facing a herd of stampeding bulls. What can students do about what he terms the "Literacy Stampede" in this age of information? The answer is they can either try (as many do) to avoid or deny it—and ultimately be trampled—or they can improve their reading and writing skills so...