About the Method

Learners who can’t write. Learners who won’t write. Learners who can’t get started. Learners who don’t proofread. Learners who write a stream of consciousness with no organization or forethought. Learners whose skills don’t improve. Learners who feel discouraged about writing and who doubt that they can ever do it adequately. Learners who drop out. 

Over 35 years ago, when I started teaching writing with adult learners like those mentioned above, I was bewildered and frustrated. I was generally unsuccessful at teaching them, although I worked hard at making interesting assignments and writing copious notes on their papers. What was I doing wrong?  

Later, I came to recognize the behaviour of learners who couldn’t write, who didn’t write, who couldn’t get started, as resistance. Even later, I came to see it as healthy resistance. Those learners have been in the position of failing at writing many times. They do not want to ever be in that situation again. They choose not to write so as not to fail at writing. I’ve been there. I get it. 

Other learners, who did write when asked, didn’t improve much or very quickly. I would spend a lot of time making comments on learners’ papers, noting errors, but when I gave the papers back, they would hardly glance at them before stuffing them into a backpack or a binder, never to look at them again. I tried many things: make corrections in red pen, give encouragement in green pen; choose one error only, and mark every instance of that error; say two positive things for every negative; but nothing made any difference. The same learners made the same errors the next time they wrote.  

I noticed that telling people what they have done wrong, especially if they have done many things wrong, discourages them and makes them defensive. They close down. It does not produce a teachable moment.  

I learned that people get better at writing when they get specific feedback about what they are doing well, rather than feedback about what mistakes they are making.  

There is a generally unspoken agreement between learners and me: I will do my best to give them the instruction they come for, and they will do their best to improve their skills. I start with the assumption that learners keep their part of the unspoken agreement. I believe that they make mistakes because they do not know how to avoid them. I know that they do not maliciously hand in shoddy work, and that they will work hard to do better, if they have some confidence that they will be able to do well.  

As a literacy practitioner, I want learners to succeed, to learn, to develop the skills of writing that will take them on to the next stages of work and education. I want to feel successful in my work. I want the joy of watching people learn.  

I needed a never-fail method for teaching writing.