"The Writer's Memo"

I really like all of what the "Writer’s Memo" has to offer. I think that it can do much to bolster a student’s writing ability and thus her writing confidence. I do not think that anything detrimental to the students can result from this method. I think that the most important aspect of causing the memo to promote growth in the student writers is the teacher’s response as a "real person." Without a real response, I think that the entire idea of building a writer-reader (rather than apprentice-master) relationship would be impossible. The only problem with the writer’s memo, however, lies in the difficulty one would have implementing it on the larger scale—that is, a collection of students greater than 50. Writing a thoughtful response to so many student’s is extremely time consuming and would take more time from a public high school teacher, which I plan to be, than the teacher has to give. This essay also mentioned the importance of the "why" for the students. I had actually been thinking about that recently as we’ve been discussing teacher response in class. I had come to the conclusion that the most valuable question would be the why, but I was afraid it would be too difficult for the students to answer. It is reassuring to see that others have used it and found success so that I know I can use it in my own classroom. I do believe that I will try to find a way to implement this into my writing assignment system when I begin teaching. The end.