Real Writing: Modernizing the Old School Essay

High-school writing prompts often ask students to provide overly simplified responses to complicated issues, but a person’s stance in the real world can rarely, if ever, be reduced to “agree or disagree.” Arguments are complex, with more than two points of view and a range of evidence to consider; however, writing classes don’t always embrace that complexity. Real Writing: Modernizing the Old School Essay contends that engaging fully with complex texts and difficult, nuanced arguments helps students become better thinkers and writers, more fully prepared for life both in and after high school.

By offering students current texts to read and issues to discuss, teachers introduce their students to more complex arguments. Real Writing: Modernizing the Old School Essay recognizes the value of various types of texts, but the need for contemporary readings in our literature and composition classes is important for relevancy related to student engagement, the Common Core State Standards, and participation in our democratic society. This book shares curricular moves to engage students in reading and writing authentic arguments.

Mitchell Nobis is an English teacher and department chair at Seaholm High School in Birmingham, Michigan. Mitchell is a co-director of the Red Cedar Writing Project at Michigan State University where his work revolves around the National Writing Project tenets that the best professional development is “teachers teaching teachers” and to best teach writing, teachers must be writers themselves. He is also the 2016 president of the Michigan Council of Teachers of English. In his spare time, he writes and plays basketball. He is in his 20th year of teaching. Follow Mitch on Twitter at @MitchNobis.

Dan Laird is in his 16th year as an English teacher at Leslie High School in Leslie, Michigan and is also a teacher-consultant for the Red Cedar Writing Project for which he is the co-director of the RCWP Greenrock Writers Retreat for writers in grades 8-12 as well as an instructor of various themed Spartan Writing Camps for writers in grades 6-8. He earned his master’s degree in education with a focus on technology and learning from Michigan State University. Dan has conducted professional development for teachers in the area of argument writing and has been a resource provider for the National Writing Project’s website Digital Is. Follow Dan on Twitter at @dandanlaird.

Carrie Nobis is an English and biology and chemistry teacher at Groves High School in Beverly Hills, Michigan, and a teacher-consultant for the Red Cedar Writing Project at Michigan State University where she is the co-director of the RCWP Greenrock Writers Retreat for writers in grades 8-12. She earned her master’s degree in curriculum and teaching from Michigan State University. Carrie regularly invites her science students to use disciplinary literacy skills to deepen their understanding. She is in her fourteenth year of teaching, and earlier in her career, she taught in Detroit Public Schools and in an alternative high school in West Bloomfield, Michigan.

Dawn Reed is an English teacher at Okemos High School in Okemos, Michigan, and is currently in her 11th year of teaching. She is a co-director of Red Cedar Writing Project at Michigan State University. Dawn earned her master’s degree in Writing and Rhetoric with a specialization in Critical Studies in Literacy and Pedagogy from Michigan State University. She conducts professional development for teachers focused on technology integration and the teaching of writing. She is co-author of Research Writing Rewired: Lessons that Ground Students’ Digital Learning (Corwin Literacy 2015), and she has published in various journals, books, and websites. Follow Dawn on Twitter at @dawnreed.

Dirk Schulze is an English teacher at Lake Braddock Secondary School in Burke, Virginia, and a teacher-consultant with the Northern Virginia Writing Project. He earned his undergraduate degree from the University of Michigan, his master’s degree in education from George Mason University, and was awarded National Board Certification in 2008. A former Outward Bound instructor, he is in his fifteenth year of high school teaching and strives to make his classroom a place where he and his students can take risks and learn from both their successes and their failures.