Teaching College Students to Write

[ChrisB]

I came across this short article from a professor who teaches Freshman comp. It reminds me of the importance of a good grammar and writing skills foundation in our homeschool journey.

[Jane Elliot]

I came across this short article from a professor who teaches Freshman comp. It reminds me of the importance of a good grammar and writing skills foundation in our homeschool journey.

 

Great article! Thank you for posting. I love this part: "They had fully established habits of sentence-rot. Who has ever changed an ingrained habit by reading the margin of a paper?"

[ErinE]

I absolutely agree with his process. Too much of schooling puts emphasis on quantity, not quality. Children churn out poems, stories, reports, and papers with no understanding of good writing.

 

I'd rather schools change their focus. The first two years is focused on creating sentences. The next two, writing paragraphs. The next four years should build on the skills to create good essays or reports. The final four years, assuming a college prep track, would focus on writing papers.

 

I don't have high school students yet, but I remember very well my mother spending time proofreading and editing my papers. My last four years of public school, I only received formal writing instruction from one teacher, my junior English teacher. She was brutal and tough in her criticism. However, her students were easily recognized by the senior English teachers. They usually had "cleaner" papers; they also had a tendency to be more critical in writing workshop exercises.

 

Too often, writing is assumed to be an instinctive process. For many people, this is not the case. Writing requires direct and constant instruction that too many schools are not offering. The public education system is not working if so many college students require remedial writing instruction.

[Peach]

Your post made me smile, Erin. I, too, had the 'brutal' English teacher who absolutely insisted on good grammar and writing. College writing, both creative and reports, was so much easier for me and now that I am a writer, I still think of her often with fondness and gratitude.

[Danielle1746]

Your post made me smile, Erin. I, too, had the 'brutal' English teacher who absolutely insisted on good grammar and writing. College writing, both creative and reports, was so much easier for me and now that I am a writer, I still think of her often with fondness and gratitude.

 

I could have written this post myself. My freshman English teacher was the one whose class I dreaded the most, but to this day, she is the one from whom I learned the most.

[ChrisB]

I wish I had a "brutal" writing teacher. To this day, I don't write too good. :tongue_smilie: Now my only hope is to learn along with my children. Luckily, DH has a better grasp of writing.