Lucy Calkins is awesome

In Lucy McCormick Calkins book The Art of Teaching Writing, her chapter “Don’t be Afraid to Teach” just blew me away. She argues, “we have been taught that there is something wrong with ‘lecturing’ to students. We therefore turn every little speech into a fill-in-the-blank exercise by using the question-and-answer format…but mini-lessons become diffuse and clumsy when we teachers persist in the question-and-answer mode that is so pervasive in our schools.” If I had only read this before I ever stepped into the classroom! When I started teaching I was so careful of not taking learning or ownership away from my students (and we do need to be careful of this) that I fell into this trap. It took me quite some time to realize that it’s okay to lecture sometimes and it’s okay to be directive sometimes. In fact, at certain times, it’s even preferable. Calkins provides an excellent example of a neat, succinct lesson about titling your work. And then illustrates how disastrous it would be if the teacher relied on call-and-response. Now…if I can just figure out when to let my students muddle through and when to succinctly lecture. And never make any mistakes that rob my students and me of our precious class time. Any tips on how to figure it out?