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mag7wrimoCan good writing be taught/learned? Here's one opinion on that...
How Do You Teach Someone to Write Well?
From Daily Writing Tips
Why is the craft of writing in such a dire state? The best writers of our time create magnificent prose, and additional tiers of talents do a fine job of communicating. But the vast majority of people seem competent at best, and many of those who are paid to write — or for whom writing is at least part of their job description (and, these days, that’s just about everybody) — frequently demonstrate a lack of understanding of, or concern about, the most basic rules of grammar and usage.
How can this be? High school graduates spend part of virtually every day of school for thirteen years learning, and relearning, and then learning again, the fundamentals of the English language, from letter recognition to critical essays. Why, then, do many colleges and universities have remedial writing courses packed with students who earned exemplary grades in high school English?
Most people, at least in developed countries, spend at least a couple of years in college, which involves completion of many writing assignments. How is it that many employers bemoan the poor writing skills of their college-graduate workers and toss so many ineptly written resumes in the trash?
Here’s a radical response to those questions: You can teach writing, but you can’t teach good writing. As a former public school student, and as a former public school teacher, I know that much of what passes for instruction in writing is dull and bereft of context. But I also know that many teachers succeed in devising and/or employing imaginative ways of helping students develop their writing skills. As a student, I experienced much of the first approach and little of the second. As a teacher, I used both methods but tried to focus on the latter strategy. I’m not sure that my efforts were successful.
I also taught copyediting to adults for many years. Some students didn’t belong in the class, because they virtually matched me in skill. Others didn’t belong in the class, because they had no business working in the writing and editing business. Most were somewhere in between. Did I help them? In class evaluations, many claimed that I did, or at least that I opened their eyes to how complex and creative editing can be.
I believe that students young and old can be taught the basics of spelling, style, and syntax, and of grammar and usage. But how do they develop the skill to integrate all these components into a clear, concise, coherent whole? As with any other skill, it takes practice, practice, practice — that’s where year after year of language arts instruction comes in. But I also believe that much of writing skill is innate: You have it, or you don’t, and if you don’t, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get it.
That doesn’t give anyone an excuse to give up. You can’t help but get better through repetition. Positive learning experiences and inspirational teachers are significant factors, but ultimately, becoming a better writer is a matter of learning what better writing is (reading well-wrought fiction and nonfiction) and of composing your own prose. My tip for today? It’s simple. Read a lot, and write a lot more.
How Do You Teach Someone to Write Well?
From Daily Writing Tips
Why is the craft of writing in such a dire state? The best writers of our time create magnificent prose, and additional tiers of talents do a fine job of communicating. But the vast majority of people seem competent at best, and many of those who are paid to write — or for whom writing is at least part of their job description (and, these days, that’s just about everybody) — frequently demonstrate a lack of understanding of, or concern about, the most basic rules of grammar and usage.
How can this be? High school graduates spend part of virtually every day of school for thirteen years learning, and relearning, and then learning again, the fundamentals of the English language, from letter recognition to critical essays. Why, then, do many colleges and universities have remedial writing courses packed with students who earned exemplary grades in high school English?
Most people, at least in developed countries, spend at least a couple of years in college, which involves completion of many writing assignments. How is it that many employers bemoan the poor writing skills of their college-graduate workers and toss so many ineptly written resumes in the trash?
Here’s a radical response to those questions: You can teach writing, but you can’t teach good writing. As a former public school student, and as a former public school teacher, I know that much of what passes for instruction in writing is dull and bereft of context. But I also know that many teachers succeed in devising and/or employing imaginative ways of helping students develop their writing skills. As a student, I experienced much of the first approach and little of the second. As a teacher, I used both methods but tried to focus on the latter strategy. I’m not sure that my efforts were successful.
I also taught copyediting to adults for many years. Some students didn’t belong in the class, because they virtually matched me in skill. Others didn’t belong in the class, because they had no business working in the writing and editing business. Most were somewhere in between. Did I help them? In class evaluations, many claimed that I did, or at least that I opened their eyes to how complex and creative editing can be.
I believe that students young and old can be taught the basics of spelling, style, and syntax, and of grammar and usage. But how do they develop the skill to integrate all these components into a clear, concise, coherent whole? As with any other skill, it takes practice, practice, practice — that’s where year after year of language arts instruction comes in. But I also believe that much of writing skill is innate: You have it, or you don’t, and if you don’t, there’s no guarantee you’re going to get it.
That doesn’t give anyone an excuse to give up. You can’t help but get better through repetition. Positive learning experiences and inspirational teachers are significant factors, but ultimately, becoming a better writer is a matter of learning what better writing is (reading well-wrought fiction and nonfiction) and of composing your own prose. My tip for today? It’s simple. Read a lot, and write a lot more.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 06:34 pm (UTC)Hm. At good schools, maybe. I don't believe I ever had English class more than two or three times a week in elementary and secondary school, and much of that was devoted to silent reading time and basic reading comprehension—nothing with any element of criticism or craft. I graduated high school with many smart kids who had never finished a novel in their lives, and my Grade 11 Advanced English class had to grind to a halt at one point when the teacher realized that none of us had ever been taught the parts of speech beyond noun, adjective and verb. I didn't read a critical essay in class until Grade 13, which was a year designated as university prep, and when I was introduced to Orwell's "Politics and the English Language," my mind was blown. My schools were aiming for basic literacy for those with the roughest starts, not advanced skills for those who came from families that read. I certainly never encountered a style guide until post-secondary!
To a certain extent, I disagree that reading "well-wrought fiction and nonfiction" is the key to becoming a better writer. I know no end of great writers who were voracious readers as young people, but who nonetheless never learned to read critically until they hit an "ah-ha" moment. I think the problem may be reading too much "good literature" in schools. Many people come to view writers (and by extension the written word) as authority. Anyone who can write something a novel's length comes to be seen as a good writer. Anything printed professionally is assumed to be good English or good storytelling.
In secondary school, we primarily read (or pretended to read) Shakespeare, Dickens and Hardy, which not only include language and grammatical rules very different from those favoured today (seriously, was Dickens being paid by the comma?), but which are not nearly as "timeless" to the teenage mind as educators like to think. And yet, criticize them on narrative grounds and you are told you simply are not intelligent or sophisticated enough to appreciate them.
Instead, I think we need to be reading more poorly-wrought works in schools and letting young people discover their inner editors. I agree wholeheartedly, however, with the advice of "write a lot more," because I shudder to think of where my own critical reading skills would be today if I hadn't discovered fandom. Certainly, my schools never encouraged creative writing beyond its use as a spelling test; book reviews beyond proving we'd completed our assigned readings; or persuasive essays beyond checking our ability to write a "hamburger essay" and cite a source.
no subject
Date: 2012-01-25 08:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 03:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-26 11:12 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-27 12:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-01-27 12:36 am (UTC)