As I travel among the planets of public schools and experience adventures as a teacher, literacy coach, and consultant, I sometimes see the “businessman and little prince” scenario unfolding in the classroom. The adults are focused on letter formation, neat writing, how the heading is completed, correct use of verbs, and accurate spelling. Meanwhile, the children are focused on trying to get their beautiful ideas down on paper. They work mightily to collect their thoughts, organize their ideas, and get their words to flow from mind to keyboard or pencil.

    For all writers, but especially very young ones who are just beginning to see themselves as creators who communicate through writing, it is the latter rather than the former that are of most import. Ideas, thoughts, flow, a bit of voice, the telling of a story, details that make a reader take notice, the communication of an event and the feelings that surround that event – these are the things that should be of most consequence.

    Like many things in life, teaching is an act of balance. Rules must be balanced with originality; structure and order must be balanced with expression. Finding the correct balance between the quantifiable aspects of writing, such as format, grammar, and mechanics, and the harder to define quality aspects of writing, such as voice, idea, and creativity, is a crucial part of a classroom teacher’s job. Instruction must always be “not too loose and not too tight.”  Why is getting the balance so important? When teachers impede, or even worse, halt the act of writing to enforce format and mechanics, they stifle the flow of ideas. And when teachers spend too much time teaching children how to head the paper, write neatly, and spell every word correctly before continuing on, they spend too little time teaching them how to generate a topic for writing, how to form varied sentences that express one central idea, and how to create voice in a piece of writing. 

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