Dear Reader,

       

    
         First, I want to welcome you to this blog about writing for a real purpose and for a real audience.  Welcome!  I want to ask you to take a minute and think back to when you were a student: What type of writing did you do?  Did it have a real purpose? Did you write for a real audience? What was the point of your writing?   Now I want you to think about how easy or difficult it was to answer those questions.

          For me, there didn’t seem to be a real purpose or audience that I was writing to.  Most the time, I was writing to a prompt that had little purpose to “real” life and the audience didn’t go outside of the classroom.  My writing was also usually restricted to the rigid rules and structures set by my teacher, that I felt very disconnected and bored with what I was writing.  I didn’t put forth much time or effort in my writing- because I didn’t care enough to do so.  Anyone else feel this way?

          Therefore, I believe it’s important that we incorporate real purposes and audiences for the students’ writing.  Not only does it seem to give more meaning to the students’ writing, but it also holds them accountable for what they are writing when they know someone else, besides their teacher and fellow students, will be reading their writing.  It can also help prepare them for the writing situations that they are likely to encounter in the real world.  Isn’t that why we attend schools to educate ourselves- to prepare us for the real world outside of the classroom?  Why shouldn’t that preparation include the types of writing that we learn about and complete in school?

          There are many ways to incorporate writing for a real purpose and a real audience in the students’ writing lessons.  I hope to help you discover some of those ways through this blog that is based on research and my personal experiences within the classrooms.

           Sincerely,
                   Shayanne Hardman