The language arts classroom is largely about leading students to become literate in their own voices and to see writing as a tool for thinking. I come to know my students through their writing and through class discussions about the texts we read and the texts we write. The challenge of good writing instruction is leading students to view their compositions as spaces in which they can seek, engage, probe, construct, and store understanding that is continually in flux. All too often, students write one draft and call it quits, failing to push their thinking past the words as they originally fell and aligned themselves on paper. Thus, writing becomes the paper you submit, not the process of developing and continually re-seeing the ideas it expresses.