My last post posed the question, “What is success when it comes to professional development?” Today, I experienced true success in a way I never anticipated.

Our school improvement plan focuses on the use of writing to increase and improve students’ acquisition of content knowledge. Many teachers feel that writing is a waste of their students’ time, that having students write in their classes cannot possibly help, and might even hinder, their mastery of the content. One such teacher was, in a friendly way, voicing that opinion to me today. I listened, knowing she meant no harm, but inside two arguments were raging.

On the one hand, I wanted to blast at how truly limited her view of writing was. The other part of me insisted that I had to let it go, that there was no point in trying to win this battle and I would only alienate a colleague who had been friendly and supportive so far.

Some other, previously unknown entity within me found a third option.

Somehow, I managed to calmly express my views (which are supported by much research) that writing can indeed increase student learning, that writing is itself an act that creates learning and that forces students to think and figure out exactly what they have, and equally important, what they haven’t learned. I mentioned the many forms that writing can take in the classroom, that it needn’t, indeed shouldn’t, always be a formal expository essay. I gave examples of other types of writing that might be helpful in a non-Language Arts classroom. And then I stopped, saying, “But of course, you might disagree.”

My colleague’s expression was difficult to read, her mouth fallen open just a bit, her eyes wide.

“I’ve never had it explained to me in that way.” Pause. “What you just said makes so much sense…I’ve never really thought of using writing the way you just described. Wow.”

And then my mouth fell open. Touchdown.