This article was shared in my friend Steve Peha’s education newsletter, and I’m grateful to have it at hand. I teach English to 11th and 12th graders, and last week we finished a unit on argument. (Ironically, this would have been a great article to use as a mentor text!) At the end of each unit of instruction, my students post their final writing pieces to their blogs and comment on each other’s work. But for their arguments, I told them that this wasn’t enough. They had to send it to an audience beyond just peers. If students are only writing for their teachers, they will meet but seldom exceed expectations, but if teachers encourage students to write for a global audience, then the chances are much greater that the writing will be better and that students will care much more. I still receive sub-par work, because teacher dependency is an epidemic. I get students at the end of the high school line, but I don’t lose hope that they can find their way back to their voices and their own sense of autonomy. Thanks for encouraging me to fight the good fight!