During its November meeting in San Francisco, the Commission on Composition discussed the critical importance of addressing the teaching of writing in the face of No Child Left Behind. Writing seems to have fallen to the margins in the rush to consider reading, particularly in the early grades. Even in the more "progressive" schools, the seemingly lock-step (e.g., phonemic awareness, phonics, etc.) approach to reading has had an impact on writing. Given the tendency to reduce writing and writing instruction to discrete skills in discussions of high-stakes testing, we returned to the Policy Statement we produced in 2003 to further refine our understanding of the ways that writing has the potential to foster learning and the types of instruction that can actually impede learning.

In this context, we addressed issues that New Literacy Studies has brought into focus: multi-modalities and multi-literacies. What does writing/composing mean in a time of multiple literacies and multiple modalities? What matters most? To try to answer these questions, we planned a convention session that will take place in Indianapolis.

The question of what matters most is particularly pertinent to discussions of adolescents and their literacies. If we ignore these modes of expression and composing we may miss out on much of what adolescents know and are able to do with literacy. We planned a convention session on this topic as well that will take place in Indianapolis.

We believe that the issues we raised this year will remain salient; therefore, our future work will entail compiling the scholarship on the study and teaching of writing - how students best learn and develop as writers, the multi-modal nature of "writing," and how teachers can best facilitate student learning. In turn, we draft a Policy Statement that the Council can use in disseminating information about the issues we feel are most pressing.

Stuart Greene, Director