Seeking the Best in the Teaching of WritingTom RomanoMiami University, Oxford, OhioTeaching Writing As ReflectivePractice. George Hillocks, Jr.1995. New York: TeachersCollege Press. 242 pp., $18.95 (paperback). ISBN 0-8077-3433-0.When I was a graduate studentat the University of New Hamp-shire, my reading and writing semi-nar teacher warned of the danger ofbecoming too “in house” as we readprofessional literature. I tapped myfingers impatiently. I had becomepassionate about teaching literacybecause of such “in house” reading.I wasn’t about to give it up. I would-n’t have applied to graduate schoolhad it not been for the voices ofDonald Murray, Peter Elbow, KenMacrorie, and, for that matter, myseminar teacher, the very scholarwho sat before me, speaking again:“It’s easy to become comfortable inyour own backyard,” said DonGraves. “You need to stretch and ex-amine how others approach readingand writing instruction.”I rolled my eyes. A few monthsearlier I’d read George Hillocks Jr.’sResearch on Written Composition:New Directions for Teaching (1986,Urbana, IL: NCTE). I’d learned alot, but had also gotten angry.Hillocks attached the adjective nat-ural to the process mode of teachingwriting. I took umbrage. Naturalprocess? It was as if we who be-lieved in free writing, discovery, andstudent-teacher conferences wereone big free love movement in theworld of writing instruction: “Doyour own thing, man, let it all hangout. Be free and express yourself thenatural way!” Naturalseemed a rhetoricalcheap shot that trivi-alized the pedagogyof writing processteachers. I rebelled and, conse-quently, resisted what Hillocks saidin that book about his “environ-mental” mode of teaching writing.So as I read the author’s newbook about written instruction atthe secondary and college freshmanlevels, Teaching Writing As ReflectivePractice, I was prepared to takearms, but I couldn’t. Hillocks offersan olive branch to writing processteachers and qualitative researchers.In his own way he is saying, “Peace,brothers and sisters.”One major goal of this bookis to provide a basis for inte-grating these diverse theoriesso that both the theories andtheir integrations have gener-ative power. (39)Teaching Writing As ReflectivePractice arises from Hillocks’ widereading in psychology, classicalrhetoric, and writing research. Itarises from deep reflection. It arisesfrom hard work with students (forthe past 15 years, Hillocks and hisM.A.T. students at the University ofChicago have taught writing to 7thand 8th graders in urban class-rooms) and thorough analysis of thewriting they produced.INQUIRY AND DEVELOPMENTThe heart of writing in anygenre is inquiry. Inquiry, Hillocksmaintains, “is often responsible forthe impulse to write. We do not sitdown to write an essay, we sit downto write an essay about a particularsubject” (99).Teachersmust instructstudents to useinquiry skills:close observa-tion, interpreting, testing, evaluat-ing, hypothesizing, comparing andcontrasting, and maybe most crucial,imagining. Hillocks links the learn-ing of inquiry to Lev Vygotsky’s“zone of proximal development,” atheory central to the work of writingteachers. The best learning, Vygot-sky theorized, precedes a child’s in-dependent development. Childrenlearn within a “zone of proximal de-velopment.” In this “zone” childrencan perform tasks in collaborationwith adults or more experiencedpeers that are beyond their indepen-dent abilities. Learning creates de-velopment.Vygotsky’s theory is central towriting process pedagogy, too. Dur-ing writing workshops, studentsconsult with peers and teachers.But Hillocks isn’t content with col-laboration that may occur naturally.Through his environmental modeof teaching writing, he activates thezone of proximal development byorchestrating classroom activitiesthat place students in collaborativesituations. Environmental teachingsystematically engages students in“problem-centered small-group dis-cussion” (66).Hillocks’ goals are two: 1) thatstudents learn strategies of inquiryand 2) that they learn the proce-dures for producing particularmodes of discourse.ENGAGEMENT AND PLANNINGFun is important to Hillocks’pedagogy, though not the kind stu-dents might find at a rock concert108 October 1996RESOURCESAND REVIEWSCopyright © 1996 by the National Council of Teachers of English. All rights reserved.or water park. Hillocks seeks to in-volve students in the fun that comeswith engaging in intellectual activi-ties that are within reach yet chal-lenging, activities so absorbing thatpeople do them without extrinsicreward. He writes:[R]eal teaching is . . . about. . . helping students learn toenjoy the process of thinkingthrough complex problemsbecause that gives them thepower and the confidence toundertake new problems innew situations without thestructure of the classroom en-vironments. (75)Engagement is key. There is nolearning without doing. It is theteacher’s responsibility for ensuringthat students become actively en-gaged. Planning is the “art” of teach-ing so important that Hillocks de-votes 4 of 11 chapters to it. “[T]hegoal of planning,” he writes, “will beto invent materials and activities thatwill engage students in using specificprocesses and strategies relevant toparticular writing tasks” (123).The teacher accomplishes thisby designing “gateway activities” that“involve students in appropriatestrategies of inquiry and ways of gen-erating discourse features” (149).THE ENVIRONMENTAL MODEOF TEACHING WRITINGTeaching Writing As ReflectivePractice is not about teaching skills ofpunctuation, spelling, usage, gram-mar, or semantics, though suchtopics, Hillocks acknowledges, areimportant parts of any writing pro-gram. He works with various modesof writing, including empathic per-sonal narratives—a mode that manyteachers think students should out-grow. Hillocks argues that such nar-ratives should be “included in everylevel of curriculum” (129), not onlybecause “narrative is the key struc-ture in almost every sort of writing,”but because “story-telling fosters thesoul [and] has the potential for meet-ing the important goals of self-dis-covery and personal