When last I ranted about the Draft of the National Standards for Writing (8/2/09), they had spurned narrative and its disreputable cousins, ownership and voice, they had snubbed “genre,” preferring instead “structures” and “formats,” and they had dismissed the process of writing in short order, with no acknowledgement of “metacognition,” “reflection,” or “portfolios” to support it. A year later, the Core Standards have mellowed a bit, and so have I.  Considering the ultimate document “Common Core State Standards: English Language Arts and Literacy in History/ Social Studies and Science” I’ll gladly give credit for some improvements.

Of course, I will return to ranting about the shameful neglect of the writing process and indicting the Standards, as soon as I have given them their due process in court.

In the final version of  the Common Core Standards, Narrative has ascended to a “Text Type,” juxtaposed with “Argument” and “Informative/ Explanatory Texts.” This is a respectable promotion from its former status as a “Sidebar.”  The Narrative standards include engaging the reader, developing narrative elements (“with purposefully selected details that call readers’ attention to what is most distinctive or worth noticing” – Grades 11-12, # 1b), and attending to the writing process, including “trying a new approach.”   These all seem to be concessions to critics who attacked the narrowness of the Standards and their neglect of the craft of writing.

The final document also lays a significant burden on History/ Social Studies and Science  for addressing discipline specific skills in writing.  Not only are the content-area teachers enjoined to support the same modes of discourse cited for English Language Arts, they are required to guide students in “writing-to-learn” (“Write in response to informational sources, drawing on textual evidence to support analysis and reflection as well as to describe what they have learned,” Grades 11-12, #10).  This latter remarkable standard is an excellent example of a “process goal,” one which allows writers to move from reading a text to reflecting on it, before eventually incorporating it into an “argument” or “informational/ explanatory text,” which are the “product goals” of writing. “Writing in response to . . .” is a “process goal,” because it has no intrinsic value to the reader other than showing the writer’s understanding of a text at that moment.

The identification of “process goals” really opens a Pandora’s Box for the Standards, because in every other case they collapse the writing process into one single standard, forever known as #5- “Strengthen writing as needed by planning, revising, editing, rewriting or trying a new approach, focusing on addressing what is most significant for  specific purpose and audience.”  In every place in the document, this statement (always numbered “5”) subsumes a multitude of skills that promote the writing process.

Thus, the English Language Arts Standards for Writing, 9-12 make no mention of “writing in response to. . .” anything, because they are fixated on products. All the intermediate forms of writing, from journals to learning logs to exploratory writing to reflective writing to blogging are ignored, because they are hidden in the process of producing higher-profile “formats,” such as a critical analysis of  “A Modest Proposal” or an argument against one of the Federalist Papers.  The Standards writers have a very “bottom line” view of the writing process, and, of course, it is a view entirely consistent with the values of the marketplace.  “Process” documents have very little marketable value, unless you are already a best-selling author, and everyone wants to know your secret to great writing.

This disregard for the process would be fine if writing were manufactured like iPhones or Toyotas, but writing grows out of a rich subsoil of pre-writing ( alluded to as “planning” in #5).  Donald Murray, the patron saint of the writing process, estimated that 85% of the writing process is pre-writing.  His discipline was to write in a “daybook,” and he drew ideas for articles and books from the seedlings of his daily writing.  This suggests that the Standards address only 15% of the writing we do in school each year.

I’ll admit that my daily writing does not approach Murray’s.   And I accept the chastening of Jenna McWilliams, who has observed of my blog,  “The writer published only seven posts in eight months (all of which were excellent, btw), and the last post went life a full two months ago. No audience has the patience to stick around through gaps that big”  (http://www.jennamcwilliams.com/?p=215).  So much the worse for my writing.  I could write more, better write more and will write more or turn in my poetic license.

Learning to write involves relentlessly writing and reflecting on the process and product. It involves commenting on writing (our own and others’), taking risks with writing, and self-assessment of our writing. This is not the message of the Standards on Writing.  Rather, they roll the process into a tight little ball by asserting about writers, “They must have the flexibility, concentration, and fluency to produce high-quality, first-draft text under a tight deadline, as well as the capacity to revisit and make improvements to a piece of writing over multiple drafts, when circumstances encourage or require it” (“Notes on Range and Content,” p. 37).  Between the lines of these “Notes” is an impatience with process, a sense that it is a luxury that the marketplace and the university can ill-afford. It also discriminates against the struggling writer, who relies on a process of acquiring habits and critical standards to move beyond a basic literacy.

To borrow from the legal culture that infuses the Standards, I do not feel writing has received its “due process” in this document.  As much as Standards represent the verdict of K-12 learning, they must also reflect the deliberation that produces the verdict. No attorney would claim the verdict was the most important element of a legal dispute and neither are the products of writing more important than their processes.  Writers must learn a process, not the mere format that emerges from the process. Therefore, the Standards should include the discourses of pre-writing, of feedback and of reflection that support the writing process.  They should advocate for the process-based pedagogy that makes everyone a writer, not merely the privileged, the writers by birthright.