Hello John and all,

I don't see any way to reconcile what I view as a contrived, singular, flawed way to teach teach writing with what we have learned about language, writing, and composing with children from the superb work of folks like Graves, Wood Ray, Atwell, Reif, Kittle and many other researchers and teachers over the last four decades.

The focus on correction is the polar opposite of studying models of excellent craft from rich mentor texts. Collins program seems to be a collection of assignments designed by someone who does not write themselves. Additionally, there is no distinction between revision and editing. Why try to reconcile such a flawed view of teaching writing?

I have not looked at the Collins materials for several years so in case there has been some huge change in design, when I come upon folks who have "bought" into this "program" I try to explain to them what I learned 10 years ago.  I was assigned to work in a Michigan middle school that had embraced the "five types of writing" so I called Collins' office to order the materials since I'd never heard of the program.

Collins' secretary was out and he answered the phone. He was very pleasant and I always try to assume good intentions with folks. When he asked about my background and I told him that I was a TC with NWP he said, "Well Toby this isn't for you. I designed this for folks across the curriculum who don't know how to teach writing in their curriculum area."  What he didn't say was that he understood that ill informed administrators who are not seasoned teachers of writing buy his program and mandate it for everyone including the ELA teachers.

From my perspective there are a few useable writing assignments in the "Middle School Writing Projects: Ideas for Writing Across the Curriculum" but those ideas can be found else where on the Web. The notion of trying to reconcile this assigned writing and correcting program with what we know about creating a rich, student centered community of writers that honors voice, risk, time, and choice seems to me an insurmountable task.

Good luck with your task. I look forward to hearing how others may respond to your question. I always try to follow the money and see what entities are getting rich off of schools, too. There are many great texts for cross curriculum writing. I don't see any reason to recommend such a program to schools.

Sincerely, Toby Kahn-Loftus, Red Cedar Writing Project, MSU