It takes a village to teach a child how to write

Williams, Williams, Williams. You make it hard for a girl to focus! Because of the loads of information squeezed into this reading, I will concentrate on the two aspects that stuck out to me. The first is romantic rhetoric. Ahh how sweet. Personally, I love to write about myself. I know this is quite ego centric, but I have so much to experiment with when it comes to writing about my own life. To echo some of the sentiments from the text, good writing is “honest, true and authentic.” It should be fun. This is the kind of writing that gets students to write for themselves first, rather than for anyone else. I was kind of turned off by the idea of comparing romantic or personal writing to “confessional” writing. The word confession brings with it a slightly negative connotation. Confess your secrets! Confess your sins! I do not necessarily think that confession is always a negative thing, it can also be quite positive. Yet, I do not like the term being generically used to define all sorts of expressive and personal writing styles. Like Jamie mentioned, I too was a bit offended by Williams’ remarks about teenagers being unable to produce interesting writing from their life experiences. Does Williams actually know any teenagers? What a ridiculously ignorant comment. Additionally, Williams argues that some students might “make up” events to put into their personalized writing because they feel pressured to make it interesting. Is this really a real problem? I know that integrity and honesty are hugely important in school and life. Yet, why is it so wrong for students to embellish upon their writing? They are still producing pieces of the truth within their writing. They are learning about themselves and different styles of writing. And most importantly, they are writing. I’ve done this. I’ve embellished every personal essay I’ve written. There is a confession. Maybe some people think this is wrong, but I think I just got caught up in my writing. I’ve never changed the meaning behind my personal experiences by doing this. In this sense, I don’t think it made my pieces dishonest. Maybe this is extremely taboo of me to talk about. However, I really don’t think that sneaking bits of fiction into personalized writing is a real problem within education. There is a difference between biographical and personalized/expressive writing. I think it is ok to mix fiction with truth in personalized essays…as long as a student doesn’t go on Oprah pretending that her writing was the whole truth and nothing but the truth.

The other area that really stood out to me within this reading was writing across the curriculum. At my previous university, we had writing intensive classes across the curriculum. I liked this method. I think it made me a more well rounded student. It held teachers accountable to help students understand different methods of writing. I had a minor in Sociology, and my writing intensive sociology classes/teachers were responsible for teaching us how to adapt to the APA or ASA format and specific styles that were acceptable for social science papers. Within the reading, I thought that the linked model would probably be a beneficial and educational way to teach students different writing styles. Yet, I also think it is a lot of extra work, especially at a college level. If professors are not able to guide students to write in the regulations of their content area, then they should not be a professor. If a teacher in any content area is not willing to teach or expand a student’s knowledge in writing, than why do those teachers assign students to write papers in their classes? Why are English teachers the only teachers who are responsible for teaching students how to write? Frankly, I think this is absolutely absurd. Why is it an English teacher’s responsibility to teach students how to write scientifically? I am not trying to back down from the responsibility of teaching writing. Yes, it is primarily an English teacher’s duty to teach writing. Yes, they can teach students how to react and interact with different audiences and writing styles. However, I really believe that teachers in other content areas should be partially responsible for teaching their students to write in that specific content area. Why is it that the only secondary education students at this university to have to complete a writing portfolio are the English students? Why not the social studies students? A lot of writing is involved in social studies. I don’t think this is fair. I can understand why the university makes future English teachers go through this process, but I do not know why they do not make everybody else go through it as well. To me, this is just an example of irresponsibility. I am very frustrated with this. Students would have such a rich and well rounded educational experience if more teachers in more content areas were willing to teach students a thing or two about writing.