veritas Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Why do you suppose that so many young people/students write poorly? Do you wonder if the dearth of teacher feedback on graded written work (essays, reports, etc) is partly responsible? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MIch elle Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 1. Writing takes time, energy, maturity, and critical thinking - how many young people feel it's of value? I know my young people do not value the end product of THEIR writing. 2. Yes. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joanne Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Because the teachers themselves are poor writers. Because teaching writing takes a special, specialized skill. Everyone writes, and it is therefore erroneously assumed that it can be taught casually. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dbmamaz Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Not reading enough or being read to enough can contribute imo Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mango Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 It's also because students aren't reading lots really good examples of writing. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lmrich Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 The skill of Writing well takes years to develop. The development of critical thinking skills and organizational skills can take even longer for some. I think poor grammar skills hinders writers. I always learned more from a writing conference than from written notes on a finished product. I think it is more valuable to receive feedback on a rough draft than to wait for the finished product. As a student, I was usually on the next paper before I got the old one back. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paige Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 The teachers allow it and don't grade realistically. It happens even in college. I think, especially in the higher grades, the teachers realize how much effort it would take to teach the student how to improve. They rationalize that they shouldn't return the paper as unacceptable if they don't want to spend the time teaching the student to improve or fight with the student about why he or she needs to improve. I don't think it's just that the teachers are poor writers. I think even a poor writer can know when other people's writing is poor. They may not see it in themselves, but they could see it in others. There's also an unwillingness to use the red pen. Kids get their feelings hurt when you mark all over their papers. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Joanne Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Related content......... When I taught a college success course at a local community college, only 4 people out of 26 knew what a 5 paragraph essay was and only 3 of those knew about thesis statements. A similarly dismal number understood good academic paragraphing with topic/intro sentences, support sentences, transition sentences. The emphasis on "journal writing" and "creative writing" and bullet point/graphic organizing lists is part of the problem, not the solution. A lack of diligent follow through and expectation of *planning* and *outlining* writing is another contributing problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LostSurprise Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 *Students don't understand exactly what teacher's want. There are several facets of this. Many teachers don't give examples a good assignment before they start grading what the student does. Many teachers don't use rubrics. Teachers don't correct rough drafts (if they do them) themselves, and corrections from other students are hit or miss. *There's the idea that students will not pay attention to something as fiddly as grammar, so many teachers decide students should spontaneously figure that out over the years (right)...or someone else should teach it. *Students (and teachers) don't want to do things more than once. Therefore, the process of writing...with multiple drafts...is not fully understood. We also don't prize correcting older assignments until they are correct. Teachers of more than 10 students can't handle that work load! *We've trained students to think that mistakes are bad. There is nothing as overwhelming as seeing a paper covered with corrections of grammar, usage, punctuation, organization, spelling, flow. A feeling is developed that it doesn't matter what happens, there will always be *something* wrong. Why bother? *Writing takes time and practice to develop. You do not become a good writer in one year. If writing instruction is inconsistent it is not helpful to the student. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wildiris Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Related content......... When I taught a college success course at a local community college, only 4 people out of 26 knew what a 5 paragraph essay was and only 3 of those knew about thesis statements. A similarly dismal number understood good academic paragraphing with topic/intro sentences, support sentences, transition sentences. The emphasis on "journal writing" and "creative writing" and bullet point/graphic organizing lists is part of the problem, not the solution. A lack of diligent follow through and expectation of *planning* and *outlining* writing is another contributing problem. I think the above is true. Writing taught as a daily practice, journaling with a purpose, is more effective than just writing and never using the material. Those journal entries then need to be used. I don't think many teachers take the next step with journals and get kids to pull from their writing to craft essays, research projects, or stories . Writing is a process that is lost on many teachers. Too often teachers at the lower grade levels do not leave enough time and give enough support for the drafting and editing process. Most of the time students read "perfect" works. They seldom see the time and effort that went into the final work. I am always on the lookout for unedited pieces of writing from famous authors. Once I found a version of Raymond Carver's story, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." Comparing the sentences of the final draft to the unfinished draft, students realize their rough draft writing isn't too far from the rough draft writing of published authors. This realization boosts confidence. The cause of poor writing in both public school and homeschool is not enough writing of all kinds that is both serious and fun, not enough grammar at all grade levels (1-12), and not enough language study in both fiction and non fiction. Language study is not the same as literature study. Language study looks at the underlying structure and form of a piece of writing both as a whole and sentence by sentence. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ILiveInFlipFlops Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Most of the time students read "perfect" works. They seldom see the time and effort that went into the final work. I am always on the lookout for unedited pieces of writing from famous authors. Once I found a version of Raymond Carver's story, "What We Talk About When We Talk About Love." Comparing the sentences of the final draft to the unfinished draft, students realize their rough draft writing isn't too far from the rough draft writing of published authors. This realization boosts confidence. Slightly OT, but do you have a shareable version of this? I'd love to see it. This is a brilliant idea, BTW. My budding writer would benefit greatly from actually seeing others' rough drafts rather than me just telling her, over and over, that rough drafts are a good thing and corrections/edits are normal and expected, and even desirable. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skyday Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 I have been wondering this myself. I am returning to college after close to 20 years of being out of school. I am taking an online course where we have to submit written assignments to a discussion board. The way it is set up, you must submit your assignment before you can read/review others. The assignment (a two paragraph summary of something we had to read) took me about a day of writing, revising, re-writing. I submitted it and then was able to view what my classmates had written. I was shocked. I probably could have just submitted my first draft copy and gotten an A. A lot of them had written in bullet points, no punctuation at all, spelling errors throughout, no capitalization, etc. A lot of the submissions reminded me of texts (abbreviations, "lol", etc.) Which had me wondering if it was "text culture" taking over. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
73349 Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Let's not forget stupid writing prompts as a cause! If you ask kids a question that they have no basis for answering, no interest in, etc., you will get badly written answers. State end-of-grade writing tests are especially bad. If the question is a good one, but the students are not in the habit of reasoning through things (even aloud), they will still answer it badly. Even without direct instruction in logic, a lot can be done via modeling. Third, many kids are not reading much. Schools often don't even allow much time for reading in reading/English classes. Fourth, as you know if you've ever tried teaching high school (or read Horace's Compromise), teachers usually have too many students to be able to give them regular, thorough feedback. They assign writing much less often and give shorter assignments than they'd like, just so they can get it all graded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Wildiris Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 Slightly OT, but do you have a shareable version of this? I'd love to see it. This is a brilliant idea, BTW. My budding writer would benefit greatly from actually seeing others' rough drafts rather than me just telling her, over and over, that rough drafts are a good thing and corrections/edits are normal and expected, and even desirable. I found the Carver piece in The New Yorker. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
busymama7 Posted January 22, 2014 Share Posted January 22, 2014 I blame the fact that they don't care what the writing looks like in the younger grades as long as it appears to be a paragraph. No concerns on content or spelling or grammar. The kids are taught that it doesn't matter. At some time they are supposed to magically make the switch but if course not all do. I'm probably preaching to the choir but I don't require composition until spelling, grammar and oral narration are up to par(4-6th grade). Before that its lots of language arts practice, some sentences, copy work, lots of oral narration, lots of being read to and lots of high level personal reading(classics ala ambleside online). My kids who are old enough are all enjoying writing including my budding engineer who could easily hate it. My oldest(16) just scored a 6/6 at the community college placement exam for a timed essay on a controversial topic he was not well informed about. He managed to do it and do it well and he was my latest to start formal writing. We didnt get a score for the grammar section but the lady said he scored very high and acted shocked at his score.(Placed into english 101)My second oldest wrote and published a short novel this year that is getting high compliments from the adults(avid readers and one owner of small publishing co) who have read it. I admit that through the years of homeschooling I doubted myself and worried I wasn't doing what the schools were doing. I am now at the point that I KNOW the schools are doing it wrong and I will keep on my own path. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shanvan Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 They are not taught to edit and to expect to edit, and then to edit again. Also not taught they need to edit. Did I mention they need to edit? They aren't told that editing is the difference b/t mediocre (or poor) writing and good writing. They are also not taught that editing takes time and that they need to allow enough time to produce several drafts. I graded papers this week. Lots and lots of red marks. :eek: We'll be spending our class time with me modeling editing. I expect it will be a painful experience for many students. They need to be willing to repeat that painful experience at home. Oh, and also many of the other problems mentioned in posts above. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
shanvan Posted January 23, 2014 Share Posted January 23, 2014 Slightly OT, but do you have a shareable version of this? I'd love to see it. This is a brilliant idea, BTW. My budding writer would benefit greatly from actually seeing others' rough drafts rather than me just telling her, over and over, that rough drafts are a good thing and corrections/edits are normal and expected, and even desirable. http://www.newyorker.com/online/2007/12/24/071224on_onlineonly_carver I wish it were an essay example. That's what I need to show students. I still may use this. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mirth Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 The teaching of writing is not any where rigorous enough, and only the very best natural writers can excel. The amount of rigor I have seen in all but a few curricula is designed to make you feel good about buying pretty sheets of paper with small cartoons and straight blank lines printed on them. For example, if you were teaching music composition (a fairly tough subject), you would first need to make sure all the students knew the basics: how to read music (reading), could play music exactly as they have learned it (recitation), could play well-known pieces of music that everyone recognizes as good (modeling & imitation), definitely knew all their scales (grammar), could transcript music by ear (dictation), could write variations on well known pieces (interpretation or imitation), could tailor music to suit a particular audience (rhetoric). It would be dumb to throw a blank piece of paper at a kid and say, "Write me some good music." and call that teaching. It would be dumber to expect this method to work for 99% of the non-Mozartian music students. But is easy for the teacher to execute and easy to blame the student. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-rap Posted January 24, 2014 Share Posted January 24, 2014 Some of the smartest people I knew had the messiest handwriting. I don't think it's always due to the teacher not caring or other reasons given. I think for some people, they just have so much to say that they care more about the idea rather than how they are putting it out there. I used to work at the Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, and they had some of the messiest handwriting I ever saw, but were some of the most brilliant people I knew. ETA: Oops! I was addressing the penmanship aspect of it, not the actual writing: composition, grammar, etc. Sorry! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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