Parents and Communities as Partners in Teaching Writing in Canadian Middle Grades Classrooms

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Teachers engage the support of parents and their communities for writing instruction.Home literacy practices and parental involvement are important underpinnings for success in school literacy (Gill & Schlossman, 2003). How teachers involve parents and community members in their writing programs, however, has not been explored adequately, particularly at the middle level when parental involvement in classroom life tends to diminish. Middle level educators may overlook opportunities to bring parents and other community members into the classroom to show students how writing contributes to their work lives. In this article, we present findings from a Canadian study that investigated the ways and extent to which teachers involved parents and their communities in their writing programs. We offer commentaries from teachers that highlight the challenges they have faced and the effective practices they have developed as they strive to involve parents and their communities in their writing programs.Literature reviewThis We Believe: Keys to Educating Young Adolescents (National Middle School Association, 2010) stresses the importance of parental and community involvement in middle level education. Two of its 16 cornerstone characteristics of successful middle level schools are:* The school actively involves families in the education of their children.* The school includes community and business partners. (p. 14)In literacy education, particularly in the teaching of writing, such involvement of the larger community helps young people realize the relevance of writing in the real world and can provide genuine audiences and purposes for writing. Indeed, literacy educators embrace conceptions of literacy that regard literacy as social practice (Barton, Hamilton, & Ivanic, 2000; Street, 1993) and attend to the multidimensionality of literate communities and affinity groups (Gee, 2000).The literature is clear about the importance of positive communication between schools and communities (Edwards & Warin, 1999; Epstein, 1985; Hill & Crevola, 1999). However, while some student populations are well represented in the literature- e.g., young children (Dunsmuir & Blatchford, 2004) children with special needs (Aram, Most, & Mayafit, 2006), and immigrant children (Cummins, Chow, & Schecter, 2006)-there are few examples from the middle level (see e.g., Egbert & Salsbury, 2009). Moreover, the available literature tends to be limited to single-classroom, first-person accounts of teachers who see parental involvement as beneficial to their writing instruction (Chihak, 2000; Del Rosario Barillas, 2000; Tassopoulos, 1995).Although there is general agreement about the importance of good communication and support between teachers and parents, it is difficult to define and develop clear, specific understandings and expectations (Beck, 2002; Brashears, 2008; Compton-Lilly, 2009; Ferrara, 2009). Many schools merely seek parental involvement to confirm school practices rather than to foster true involvement (Cairney & White, 1999), and some educators provide cautions about problematic aspects of parental involvement in writing programs (Egolf, 1994). These problems include the parents focusing on writing conventions and actually doing the writing for their children, negating teachers' efforts to have students take ownership of their writing. Moreover, teachers who seek positive parental contributions need to consider the education of parents (Edmondson, 1999; Foley Cusumano, 2008), as parents without a clear idea of how the teacher would like them to contribute will not be able to work well with the teacher. Teachers also should consider the circumstances and perspectives of parents, who can share information about their children that may help teachers engage students productively (Compton- Lilly, 2009).There is little available research about teachers' uses of community resources for teaching writing. …