Welcome to my blog on teaching writing. I hope you will find inspiration to teach writing in a hole new way, I hope you will Discover who you are as both a writer and a writing teacher. We as writing teachers have answered a hi calling – especially if you teach writing at a secondary or undergraduate level. Not many students feel good about they’re writing, and are therefore hesitant to attempt it. We the writing teacher become the enemy, and each day is a battle as we trudge through the muck of our students often incoherent and confusing ramblings.
Whoah!
I know you’re probably thinking that this writer has no idea how to write. I am sure that your instinct was to either quit reading or correct the grammatical errors in my introduction. Had this been an audiobook, though, would you have known the difference? Probably not. You would have listened to the content, and hopefully, understood that the goal of this blog is to help writing teachers learn a new approach to teaching writing. The point is that writing contains rules that do not necessarily pertain to speaking. Speaking is natural whereas writing is an art we must learn. Babies learn to speak by simply listening and imitating. This is not so with reading and writing; we must study and learn how to master those skills, and as a teacher of language arts, I feel responsible for helping my students achieve mastery in these more unforgivable areas of communication so that when they have to write a paper, they write their ideas with confidence.
Yesterday, I ran into one of my former writing students. She was also the best writer I have ever taught. I was thrilled to hear that she is now an English major and is pursuing a career as a fiction writer. My main point in mentioning this encounter, though, is to say that she made a comment that impacted me. She said, “You know, Mrs. Brown, what I love about being in college is that I am in classes with other students who want to write too. They don’t complain and grumble about writing assignments. They want to be there.” I thought to myself, that’s the difference, that’s the battle. Most of my students don’t want to write essays, papers, poems, or memoirs. They are forced to, and let’s face it, no one likes to be forced to do anything. But, why is it that most of our students don’t want to write? My theory is that it’s because they simply don’t know how to do so. If someone told me that in order to keep my job, I had to put new drywall in my classroom, I would quit. It’s not because I am not physically able to hang drywall; it’s because I don’t know how. I would need someone to teach me, and as writing teachers, it is our job to teach our students the hows of writing.
Before we get into the nitty gritty details of how to transform our students’ attitudes about writing, we must explore our personal pasts and how our relationships with language have evolved. Please join me on the next stop, my hometown.
“You know, Mrs. Brown, what I love about being in college is that I am in classes with other students who want to write too. They don’t complain and grumble about writing assignments. They want to be there.”
Communication Station 