Teaching the Writer vs Teaching the Composition

I have always felt very strongly about teaching students skills that they will actually use in the real world and helping them to develop into a wonderfully well-rounded person.  Now that I'm a mom of a two year old, my feelings about that have intensified.

In teaching young students, my number one goal is creating a literate, thinking person; one who can read and write for a variety of purposes, including enjoyment.  Somehow, in our endeavors to reach certain state and national standards we have lost sight of that.

Although we have testing standards we have to reach, that must remain the secondary goal for us as we plan instruction.  We must first foster a love for reading and writing and develop deep comprehension and thinking in each.  After that is established, we can show our students to how the concepts and strategies we have taught them will translate into a test.  We can teach them the "test genre", but only after we have established a solid foundation of skills that they will actually use in real life.  

Here's an example:

Students in 4th and 7th grades must write two 26 line essays for the STAAR test: one personal narrative and one expository. Let's think about instruction for that a moment.  We have 2 general options:

1. Teach students how to write 26 line essays.  All year.  Very specific formula. 
2. Teach the students the craft of writing.  Help them discover themselves as writers and expose them to strategies and techniques that real authors use.  Then, weeks before the test, help them channel what they know about writing into a brief, concise 26 line essay.

When I think about what I want for my daughter Layla, I want her to dabble in writing all genres (poetry, drama, fiction, personal narrative, persuasive, etc.) and I want her to be able to write for all sorts of purposes (for entertainment, to persuade, to inform), not just for a test.  I would be heartbroken if she spent a year learning how to write a 26 line essay.  Unfortunately, this is happening in far too many classrooms, schools, and districts.

Let's wake up people.  Let's really think about what we are doing and why. There IS a balance that can be achieved!  We just have to really think critically ourselves and work together to make it happen.