The book I am reading is about six literacy principles that Newkirk considers important if teachers are to support and enhance students’ literacy skills. As the word literacy suggests, the author is focusing not only on writing but also on how teachers can integrate other literacy skills such as writing and reading in a way that does not privilege any of the literacy skills over others. He argues that this is especially important in this era of testing where emphasis tends to be on reading and not on writing. Newkirk warns that teachers should guard against using writing to enhance reading; rather, they should view writing as a goal in its own right. I agree with him. When I was a practising teacher I remember noticing (and sometimes doing it myself) that writing was used as a tool for teaching not only reading but other learning areas. In these contexts, the focus tended to be on the content and not writing. It did not really matter how students wrote. While I agree with Newkirk’s view about the role that most teachers have assigned to writing, I need to point out that I was a bit puzzled by Newkirk’s emphasis on expressive writing at the expense of other genres such as argumentative, persuasive, and exploratory writing. My question is: By overemphasizing expressive writing, are we not robbing students of other forms of writing that they need in order to achieve academically and to learn different discourses? Furthermore, that students should derive pleasure in literacy, I do not dispute. However, I question Newkirk’s implication that this should occur with every texts that students read including content area textbooks. I think that as long as textbooks are well written, they might be engaging. I believe that when students are engaged, then they will be able to enjoy what they are reading. Perhaps, this is what Newkirk means.
