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Gilrane et al reflect on the similarities over time that have given the writing process its important place in one's classroom. Among other things, they point out that the writing process then, and now, is at the center of a web of connections that are critical to the lives, the literacies, and the relationships of one's classroom communities.

All three of us came to the writing process while searching for answers about teaching reading. In 1983, Colleen was teaching first grade in a large, urban school district and desperately trying to figure out how to help the children who struggled with reading the mandated curriculum. In 2002, April and Susan were first grade teachers in a rural setting participating in a two-year Reading Excellence Act (REA) grant that their school was eligible for based on low standardized-test scores in reading. We each began using the writing process because we were persuaded by others that it was one part of the solution; we all came to be convinced of its powerful, central role based on our own experiences in our own classrooms. Books, videotapes, and diverse ideas about writing abound now (Atwell, 1998; Calkins, 1994; Graves, 1994; Hansen, 2001; Harwayne, 2001; Ray & Cleaveland, 2004) when compared to what was available in 1983 (Graves, 1982b; Graves & Hansen, 1982; Hansen, 1983); however, as we have reflected on our teaching, we discovered that it is not the changes but rather the similarities over time that have given the writing process its important place in our classrooms. Then, and now, the writing process is at the center of a web of connections that are critical to the lives, the literacies, and the relationships of our classroom communities.

"Can we have another writing time?":

Writing connects to learners' lives

In all of our classrooms, writing process time is the children's favorite time of the day. If some disruption in the schedule causes us to miss writing time, the children are unhappy and we hear about it! The obvious engagement of the children during writing time illuminates its strong connection to their lives: They are compelled to write.

April's children sometimes walk into the classroom in the morning and announce, "Look! I already did my writers' workshop!" as they proudly wave pages of writing they completed at home. They still participate willingly in the class workshop time, continuing to work on these pieces that are so important to them they could not wait to get to school to start. Susan's children often ask, "Can we take our folders?" as the class is lining up to go outside for recess. She, of course, answers, "Yes!" and rejoices in their obvious desire to write. Colleen taught one group of children who formed an after-school writing club and another who asked, "Can we have another writing time?" when they were given periods of free time for some reason.

While our society continues to lament the bad effects of television and computers on print literacy, we see children in love with paper, pencils and markers, when those are the tools that they can use to express what matters to them. We cannot underestimate the power of making our children, their lives, and their stories central to our curriculum, especially as we envision the world they will be creating as adults. We join with Lisa Cleaveland and Katie Wood Ray in saying, "No matter what, just let them write every day" (2004, p. ix).

"Wow! Look how much I know now!":

Writing connects all learners to success

April sat down recently to have a conference with a student who wanted to choose a story to publish. Her suggestion that he choose a recent piece sent him, in sixyear-old fashion, flipping through the pages in his folder back to pieces from the beginning of the year, three- and four-months old. Suddenly he pulled out an old draft and exclaimed, "Ms. Adsit, look at this! Look at this one, and look at today's. Wow! Look how much I know now!" We have all experienced some version of this event, and we believe it's possible due to the concrete nature of writing and the personalized nature of process teaching.

Because we keep every page of writing the children produce all year, experiences like this can happen. If they are given time and opportunity to reflect, the children can't help but see the differences in their work over time, and to be proud of their growth as learners. Parents and teachers can celebrate this as well, or know when to intervene. Susan has been able to use the children's writing in collaborations with the school's speech and language therapist to plan supportive teaching strategies for particular children.

For all of us, though, the most powerful aspect of the writing process approach with regard to successful learning is that it is so personalized to each child's needs and abilities. Susan and Colleen had both taught long enough before encountering the process approach that we remember, grimly, days of "screening" children when they arrived at school to place them in ability groups that did nothing more than progress through materials at different rates-resulting, of course, in the outcome that some children never caught up. But when all children write from the first day, and teachers respond to what children are trying to do (Graves, 1982a; Smith, 1983a), everyone's progress is accelerated. And so a child like Timothy, one of our first graders who could barely form letters when school began in August (see Figure 1), was nonetheless a full participant in the workshop and supported in ways that enabled him to write an illustrated one-sentence story in October and eventually a full page story in February. Jenny, on the other hand, who was already writing illustrated, one-sentence stories in August (see Figure 2), was by October working on a three-page story that she sustained over several days' workshops. When both of these children, and all of the others in the class, have their writing accepted, and their stories listened to and affirmed by the class, they are able to see themselves as successful and thus to take the risks necessary to learn and grow.

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"Where's that Martin Luther King book?

I need to write about him":

Writing connects to reading

April and her children had read the book, Martin's Big Words, and discussed how the word "big" in that story meant "important." During writing process time on a subsequent day, one of the children asked, "Where's that Martin Luther King book? I need to write about him." His classmates helped him find the book, and after consulting (but not copying!) it he wrote his story, Martins Important Words. Events such as this one become more frequent in our classrooms as the children become used to the idea of thinking of themselves as authors, and of the books in the room as pieces of writing done by other authors (Graves & Hansen, 1982; Hansen, 1983). Frank Smiths (1983b) exquisitely simple (yet profoundly complex) idea of reading like a writer unfolds before our eyes nearly every day as the children use their workshop time as an anchor for what they are learning about books and reading during read alouds, self-selected reading, and skill lessons at other times during the school day.

All of us have observed that our children seem to devour books once they connect them to writing. We don't need to "motivate" them with rewards because the books are their own rewards: The children need them as examples of good writing. They turn to them not only for literary inspiration but also for word-level skills, and we hear children say to themselves some version of, "OK, I know that word is in that book in front of the room, I'm going to go find it," and see them then, in fact, get up from the desk to find the book in question and the word they need. We've all seen that reading is so greatly strengthened by writing that none of us will ever teach without the writing process again. Should we ever be unfortunate enough to work in a setting in which we are instructed to do something else, we'll find a way to fit in the writing process anyway.

"I didn't know that about you!":

Writing connects students and teachers to each other Susan recently sat down to have a conference with a child, and he began by saying, "I don't know what to write about." Before she could respond, the child sitting next to him said, "You just moved into a new house! You can write about that, you know!" Because their stories are central to the curriculum, and they have learned to listen to and value each other, our children are connected in ways that did not happen before. They know not only who's interested in what topics, but also who's expert in what skills, and where needed assistance might be found. They help each other with topic choice, by asking genuine questions that indicate interest in each other's stories, and by referring each other to sources of help, as when Susan's children say, "That word is in [some particular] book, I'll help you find it," and they do, in fact, put down their own writing and help classmates find the information they need.

As teachers we also know more about our children than we ever did before the writing process was part of our classroom. Colleen rejoiced to find an alternative to giving up her 25-minute duty-free lunch as a way to find time for conversation with her children, back in the days of the first wave of teacher-proof curricula following the Florida Educational Accountability Act of 1976. April recently found herself staring open-mouthed at a child while listening to her read her story, and then saying, "Really? I didn't know that about you. I've known you for half a year now, and you never told me that!"

This may be the most powerful of all of the connections, the way that the structure and expectations of the writing process approach expect all members of the community to value, listen to, and understand each other. Not only the most popular children, or the highest-scoring children, or the loudest or the biggest or whatever other hierarchy might present itself: all voices are listened to and honored. So that when Felicity, an extremely shy member of April's class, asked for someone to retell her story after she had read it aloud during whole class share, and twice a class member tried to ask a question, she firmly told him it was not yet time for questions and called on someone else. She wanted to know what her classmates had heard in her piece and was not yet ready for questions about it. The structure of the workshop provided the safety for this child to speak for herself and take charge, and with her teacher's and other class-members' support, she successfully insisted on and received respect for her authority in the situation.

Retelling rather than questioning is not the crucial issue here, honoring Felicity's voice is. These children are learning to listen to each other and to treat each other with respect, and those of us who are fortunate enough to live and work with them envision a possible future in which they, as adults, fashion a society in which this is the norm. A society in which everyone feels belonging, in which everyone is engaged, and from which few or no persons are so alienated as to result in events like Columbine or September 11. Henry Giroux said in 1987,

Democracy requires citizens who can think, challenge, and exhibit long-term thought. This means that public schools need to become places that provide the opportunity for literate occasions, that is, opportunities for students to share their experiences, work in social relations that emphasize care and concern for other, and be introduced to forms of knowledge that provide them with the opportunity to take risks and fight for a quality of life in which all human beings benefit. It is to our benefit that Donald Graves not only writes and talks about these issues, but also works with other teachers in implementing them (p. 181).

We agree. We are so glad that Donald Graves spent all that time sitting in Mary Ellen Giacobbe's first-grade classroom learning from her and from her children, and we are grateful to be among the teachers who have learned so much from him and from the others he has inspired. Our teaching will never be the same.