I am a writer and I love it!
The ability to write
well is not a gift! Writing well is not a gift reserved for the few but a set
of skills that can be learned by anyone.
And writing well is not
an option for young people, it’s a necessity!
In today’s world, writing has become foundation to
finding meaningful employment across much of the work force. Writing is the
primary basis, upon which your work, your learning and your intellect will be
judged – in school, in college, in the workplace and in the community. Despite
the highly competitive, technology-driven, global economy, the reality is that
we write more than ever these days. While it’s a rare phenomenon now days to
see someone sitting with a paper and pen, and writing a letter to a friend or
loved one, we pour out emails at an astounding rate. With technology, we fail
to realize that we text message, we tweet, we write blogs, instant messages,
comment and otherwise shoot words at each other in a near constant flow of
communication, we use literacy i.e., reading and writing.
Public schools today are doing a poor job of
teaching students the art of writing. Buried in the overwhelming quantities of
standards, curricular pacing guides, huge class sizes, worksheets,
over-the-top-testing; they fail to incorporate the foundations of writing which
very well improves students’ and others’ – the potential for success,
regardless of the field they find themselves. People who write well have the
opportunity to make a mark in the world, because their best ideas aren’t trapped
in their own minds for lack of a means of expression. Writing is a prerequisite
to living a literate life, to open up opportunities in the fast paced world and
highly demanding jobs in the market today. Writing is portable and permanent.
It makes your thinking visible.
How often have you seen your students, or yourselves
or your younger cousins/friends say this?
It is very importance for us as teachers to begin
with telling the students why they should write rather than how they should
write keeping in mind we are here to build students who grow up to write in the
real world as leaders.
What we can do as teachers?
Model by writing and think aloud while writing in
front of the class. This gives our students an insight on how to compose their
own pieces. Show them how you draft your papers, show them how to grapple this
mysterious thing called- “writing”. The students need to see how you struggle
with the process of writing. Teachers and educators have learned that the best
strategy to improve your students’ writing is - have the students watch and
listen to you as you write and think aloud. Apart from this, also give your
students a mentor text that will guide them in writing.
Also, make it clear that good writing does not happen
overnight! It always starts with lousy first drafts which refine and get
better.
As an elementary school teacher I really struggle with writing instruction. I worry about modeling too much because the students sometimes end up writing something SO similar to what I wrote that it lacks originality. I think that is one of the biggest challenges of modeling writing for students. (Not to mention the classroom management necessary to have students watch you write for an extended period of time) I find that using mentor text along with modeling helps students develop as writers. For some reason they are less likely to copy-cat an author they don't know than their teacher.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you that public schools might not be emphasizing the art of writing in classrooms. While youth are constantly writing in various forms, are they aware of the art of writing? Perhaps not. Youth might be more focused on communicating and being heard through writing; however, if we provide them the proper tools and strategies to understand that writing is an art form, youth can extend their purpose of writing or even enhance their communication skills. Like you said, it is important to provide real world examples of writing and the necessity of it to students. Writing skills not only affect how you communicate to your friends, but your ability to obtain employment positions and be promoted throughout life.
ReplyDeleteYour points are well taken. Writing is a necessary skill to develop. Unfortunately, it's sometimes viewed as an antiquated practice because it's conflated with writing formal letters long hand, or producing very specialized forms of literature utilized by a minority of the population. Our challenge is to make our students aware that writing is important and ubiquitous, and we must find ways to stimulate their writing in different contexts with different expressive purposes.
ReplyDeleteGood afternoon, Sindhu -
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your post. You raise some very good points. While it's true that children and adults are probably writing more than ever when you take emails, blogs and text messages into account, I think the skills that perhaps aren't developed fully are in the areas of structure and discipline. People used to be prolific letter writers. Women used to save "love letters" written by their boyfriends and future husbands. There are published books consisting of nothing more than the correspondence of pen-pals. Letter writing was highly regarded. You purchased only the finest paper, and if you could afford it, you might even order personalized stationary. It takes a lot of consideration to put ideas down in ink on paper. It's a craft, and I think it's an art that is on the decline. On the other hand, the ease with which we can communicate these days means that on the whole we do share more of our thoughts than ever before, and with a far wider audience. The style, though is likelier to be more natural, less formal, but on the flip-side less disciplined, perhaps even rambling. Our students should be encouraged to write, but also to read what they write to assure that their message is clear. It shouldn't suffice to just hit spell-check and "send" and be done with it.
John -
So very true.... being able to address the fact that writing doesn't go away with different subjects as I naively thought when I decided to go into science was a big mistake! Of course that's the only reason why I went into science however, after graduating and working in the private industry, I completely agree with you that writing is an essential aspect of just about any career in any subject. At some point or another, you will have to communicate with others through writing. I feel if I was able to better grasp this importance in high school, I would have been able to be better engaged in writing. Also to know that writing is a constant process is a very important aspect as well. I love your Calving & Hobbes cartoon because I was totally Calvin! I always put off writing because I thought a better idea would come along. Instead I should have just started writing and practicing as this can stimulate ideas.
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