If we are going to improve the writing of our students, we will need to require our students to write more often so that they can get sufficient practice; we will need to actually teach our students how to write the papers we require of them; and we will need to ensure that they get a range of experience writing a variety of genres so that they can see how complex writing is and how writing varies depending on the context, the genre, and the audience. Perhaps most importantly, we will need to design our writing instruction in ways that will help our students transfer what they have learned in school to the writing they do in the world outside of school.