She wasn't thinking...that's why.

Wilson slams me again with practical application for the classroom:

“We can’t learn to write from following orders. That might work for memorizing multiplication tables. But to compose, we have to make an endless string of decisions. And there’s never one right decision; you’re deciding between dozens of plausible decisions every decision you make. In addition to reflecting on the reality of composing, our decision making lens supports our larger goal of preparing students to write in a more inclusive and equal democracy” (Wilson, 2018, p. 71).

Because writing is so complex, our approach to instruction and feedback for assessment of growth must be different. Wilson shared a story from Katie Wood Ray as she conferenced with a writer. She asked the student about how she started her paper, "What were you thinking?" (Ray, 2006, 59). The student couldn't answer because she wasn't thinking. She was copying the beginning from the five paragraph graphic organizer she was told to use for the prompt. The student couldn't answer because she wasn't making decisions at all. She was following orders. The result is often crappy writing that the kids can't discuss. Even worse? Kids don't realize that they should be able to have something to say about what they are doing and why.

"For writers to grow, they need lots of practice finding and developing their intentions and using them to make decisions as they write" (Wilson, 2018, 75). That means our minilessons should explicitly model how one goes about doing that. That means that the way we conference with students should pose questions that allow them to speak about how they make decisions as writers. “The purpose of a writing conference, then, isn’t for the teacher to give advice about the writing, but to invite the student’s other self to speak - and then to listen" (Wilson, 2018, 89).

We help the writer become aware of their intentions by helping them focus on the things that drive intention: feeling, impulse and meaning (Wilson, 2018). We need to make students aware that they have these to begin with. It is that awareness of intention that will drive the decision making. Here are the questions Wilson recommends. They are very similar to Carl Anderson’s Recommendations in How’s It Going. The difference is that the teacher is now purposefully conducting these “idea conferences” to help the students connect to their intentions as writers.

Assessing for Intention: Conversation Starters

1. Tell me what you're working on and how it’s going.
2. How did you get the idea for this?
3. What made you write about this?
4. What are you trying to do here?
5. How did you start this?
6. How are you feeling about this?
7. What were you thinking when you wrote this?
8. Is there anything that’s not here that you really wanted to be here?
9. Does this do what you want it to do?
10. Tell me what it was like when you were working on this.
11. Did your ideas or feelings about this essay change while you were working on it?

Ray, K. W. (2006). What are you thinking? Educational Leadership 64(2). 58-62.

Wilson, M. (2018). Reimagining writing assessment: From scales to stories. Portsmouth, NH: Heinemann.