When I first began reading the article and I realized the article was actually asking me, the teacher, to be the composer of ER material, I was shocked. Why should teachers reinvent the wheel, or in this case, the literature, for the purpose of reaching particular students who are reluctant readers or readers who have difficulties, such as English as a second language students? It seemed absurd: too much time and too much energy, as if we have nothing else to do. Nonetheless, I decided to be the good student and finish with the article and somehow, somewhere between benefit number one and the end of the document, I began to see something of value in the theory of using the teacher as a writer.
Teachers already spend time searching for the right work; so, time may not be as big of an issue as I thought. We also spend too much time trying to explain writing that may not connect to the students, another waste of time. I realized that I understand my students and the curriculum better than anyone else. I even began to think about how many times I have created pieces of writing to act as samples anyway, and the idea of the teacher as the writer began to cement itself into my head.
As I read the “how-to” section, I continued to make mental connections. I never really thought of taking existing documents and altering them; it seemed wrong. I never liked borrowing ideas; it seemed wrong. And I rarely looked to colleagues for assistance; shouldn’t I stand on my own two feet? But perhaps it is okay. I think I… let me rephrase that, I know I already do these things! Maybe, with a little work and a little common sense, the teacher can become a writer of ER materials.
Every student can be a good reader if they have the right reading material. Alas, all of us teachers know that to find the right reading material for those difficult-to-motivate students can, even with the Internet, be like finding a needle in a mountainous stack of books or in a stack of a billion websites. An example of students for whom finding materials can be difficult are those whose reading age is much lower than their life age. Such a problem is especially frequent in the case of students for whom English is a second language or for whom Standard English is a second dialect.
Perhaps the solution lies not in us searching harder or more skillfully for that elusive needle or in sharing our needle collections with our fellow teachers (although those too are good ideas) but in making our own needles, i.e., writing our own materials for our students. In addition to providing more ER materials for our students, the concept of teachers-as-writers offers other benefits. After discussing the benefits (the Why), we’ll move on to some practical ideas, i.e., the How. Perhaps, writing for our students is easier than you think, especially since we needn’t write a long tome; instead, we can start with something one page long.