Teachers and Authors are Perfect Writers

For many students, it seems like their teachers and the authors of the novels read in class are perfect writers and readers. How could they believe any differently, when teachers only present their own reading interpretations cultivated over the years and authors only publish their works edited by professional editors? 

In "Conversing with Miguel" by Elaine Rubenstein-Avila, a young Mexican-American student retells his enjoyment of a writing workshop. Miguel tells Rubenstein he learned that, "even my teacher don't write all pretty the first time" as they struggled through the writing process together in the workshop. That process included writing another draft, showing it to the other students in class for corrections, then turning it in to the teacher for feedback, according to Miguel. 

Going through the writing process with his teacher in the workshop is an important way for Miguel and students like him to feel more comfortable with making mistakes and becoming a better writer. In another class of mine, Teaching Secondary School, we're reading "The Literature Workshop" by Sheridan Blau. Blau makes a point alongside the one Rubenstein discovered through Miguel, in that teachers demonstrating their struggles and failures in the writing and reading process encourage students to work through writing and reading as a process. 

"When do students see their teachers struggling to make sense of a 

difficult text or producing a reading that proceeds gradually, moving 

from mere confusion, to a sense of gist, to a reading that is tentatively complete 

but that will still give way to a more perceptive and adequate interpretation?" 

Not only is demonstrating the process important for literacy development, but Blau also recommends working with other students in groups is effective in reaching more "pretty" interpretations of text. Students like Miguel who struggle with certain English words would be able to receive help from native English speakers in groups. Group work can also be an opportunity for Moll(et. all)'s "funds for knowledge" to be useful depending on the text being discussed. Blau calls for diversity in groups in order to get different interpretations from a text and be able to thoughtfully discuss it until an appropriate interpretation is reached. Even on a lower reading level and for more superficial meanings of texts, group work can be especially helpful for struggling learners of English to do what Vygotsky calls the "zone of proximal development," where, according to Blau, is "where they are able to together more than any of them can do by themselves."