I feel that the author of “To High School English Teachers (and All Teachers)” and Christensen mirror each other in the idea that teachers should resist “teaching so that students acquire fixed content and instead foster students as ongoing learners”. In one of her writing assignments, Christensen mentioned how she asked students to interview a person who “reads without words”. This assignment brought students into a new world of academia; they were able to recognize that what they are learning to do in the classroom is a skill that remains important past classroom walls. While fishermen read the water and hairdressers read hair and anatomy (Christensen 5-6), they also write in their professions. For example, a fisherman writes whether or not people can consume tuna and salmon, while a hairdresser writes and creates a new style for his or her clients. Students develop ideas about learning that may not have existed beforehand: learning is never ending, there is allows time and opportunities to learn.

This assignment also lets students and teachers know that there are many ways of learning and writing that vary from person to person. If I assign a writing prompt, I do not have to assign a specific structure. I can leave conventions and structure up to the individual student. While I may hold expectations for them, writing in a way that fits individual learning styles gives students the opportunity to hold expectations for me. If there are no deficit views of language, writing, and reading, as the blog poster explains, then it is simpler to create a classroom curriculum “that helps students make sense of the world, that makes them feel smart” and educated (Christensen 7). Student differences and individuality become the main focus of the classroom and what is important to them becomes the main theme. From the point of view of a native English speaker, there are specific mechanics and conventions that students should learn and understand to become successful in schools driven by inequality. Although this is true, there are many bi-lingual, and even tri-lingual students in the typical, everyday classroom. Each of these languages posses their own unique mechanics and conventions that become prevalent in student writing. Our job as educators is to take this set back into consideration, explaining that some errors are ok because they follow their “natural” pattern and showing them how those same mechanics are used in modern English writing.