Many excellent reading and writing teachers are facing important philosophical questions in their teaching. Many teachers lament that new guidelines have forced them to eliminate practices such as writing workshops, shared or guided reading, daily news, and read-alouds. The reasons why these teachers can no longer engage in these activities is…

In the UK, teachers have moved from a process approach to the teaching of writing to a more didactic and objectives led programme. This has given rise to concerns about the suppression of creativity and enjoyment. Writing is a convention bound activity where spelling, punctuation and expectations about different text types imply a right and wrong…