The only way to address writing is to give line-by-line feedback. We cannot assume that students know what good writing looks like.
Actually, the first thing is to convince the student that he has something he (or she) has to write about. Then, when he (or she) writes that down, you go over it with him (or her). Then they discover how their mind works ... and start to know how to write. I say this from experience, because one of the few things I know I did well in my life was teach people how to write. Did they become great authors? Not so far as I know. But I am sure they became people who could engagingly write down what was on their minds. And probably pretty good judges of decent writing. I might add that I often think about my students and hope that they had great lives. You come to love people you teach.
In Warrenpoint, Dennis Donoghue mentions a colleague who thought that it is Latin that teaches one to write English. Stanley Fish has remarked that the graduates of Catholic schools are more likely to write well than their classmates from other schools, not that most Catholic high schools require Latin now.
ReplyDeleteBut I take your point. I've been looking over a co-worker's son's college application essays. Simply treating the paragraphs as if they ought to make sense, and can make sense with some revision, seems to have helped the young man a good deal.
In my experience, line-by-line comments go about 70% ignored, unless the comments amount to instruction for revision; for instance, if one writes "comma splice" in the margin and then requires the student to find and correct that comma splice. But that is small potatoes. I agree: if we can get them to feel confident and help them find something good to say, the rest follows. Practice will eventually bring about clarity, brevity and precision on the sentence level.
ReplyDeleteOne of the the biggest problems with writing teachers is that they try to fix all of a writer's problems permanently in one paper. Too little emphasis is placed on requiring lots of writing, both closely and loosely monitored. Not everything needs to be red-penned.
As Somerset Maugham said, Chris, "One cannot write well unless one writes much."
ReplyDeleteQuite helpful piece of writing, thanks for the post.
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