Blog Post #3

Early Writing Experiences

My first memory of learning to write is not until seventh grade (ages 12-13). I went to a tiny, church-based school that used a homeschooling curriculum that heavily emphasized grammar, spelling, and mechanics. We had spent the previous two school years breaking down sentence parts and diagramming them in ways that would make linguistics professors shudder, but it still did not prepare me for the daunting task of writing a paper. The teachers at this particular school were not required to have a college degree or a teaching certificate, so I honestly am not sure if this particular teacher was even qualified to teach writing. However, trudge through, we did, learning about the thesis sentence, topic sentences, and five paragraph essays. We focused on persuasive essays and comparing/contrasting. We were taught about the basics of "good" writing: transitions, staying on topic, and restating the thesis in the conclusion. Luckily, I took to writing pretty naturally, so despite the under-qualification of the instructor, it did not negatively impact me in (public) high school or college.

University Writing Experiences

Once I got to college, the expectation was that we already knew how to write. I took freshman English, analyzing texts about nature and the environment. I took children's literature and British literature. Each professor wrote his or her comments in the margins of a submitted paper, but no one focused on the process. Eventually I took a technical writing class, but it was very specific to documents that would be needed in my professional life - memos, cover letters, emails, etc. Despite being helpful, it certainly did not develop me as a writer.

On Being a Student of Writing

In middle school and high school, we were taught and required to provide brainstorms, outlines and rough drafts. There was a very specific formula. Straying from the formula was frowned upon. For some students, this formula worked. It helped them to put their ideas together in a cohesive way. But this method was not how my brain worked at all, so it was always really frustrating for me. Even today I generally brainstorm in my mind and not on paper, I rarely use an outline for shorter papers, and I repeatedly edit and revise as I go. I really disliked the clinical methods I was taught. In my mind, it took the heart and soul out of the writing process.

Foreign Language Learning

To me, language and writing were supposed to be works of beauty, not plugging information into a formula, which is probably why high school writing courses frustrated me so much. High school foreign language classes, on the other hand, invigorated and excited me. I began  taking Spanish as a high school freshman and went on to major in it in college (and eventually became a Spanish teacher). In the 8+ years I studied Spanish, I did not once learn how to write in the language. Sure, we had to compose essays and research papers in the target language, but we never touched on the mechanics of writing in L2. I would notice different punctuation rules when reading, but it was never explicitly taught or even pointed out in the assignments I got back from my instructors. In this way, it is similar to university level writing in that the content was always more important that mechanics.

Classroom Writing Instruction

Though I'm a Spanish teacher, in the lower levels we do not focus on writing. We are focused on helping students put together sentences that communicate information. I'm always shocked that they find it so troublesome to look through a few chapters of vocabulary and come up with a single thought or sentence that makes sense. Because of this, any writing we do is very short, paying no mind to flow, punctuation or capitalization. I am even very lenient on grammar in the writing we do because my aim is to make them feel comfortable using words and phrases in the target language.

Cultivating Diverse Methods

Going back  to my previous thoughts about the writing process taking out the "heart and soul" of writing, I believe that cultivating an understanding of diverse models of writing and instructional methods could help writing to appeal to students with various academic and cultural backgrounds. If a student struggles with writing, a formulaic approach would work to improve their basic writing ability. Once they master that, they could be set free to experiment with methods that express their creativity or that come more naturally to them based on their cultural background. For students who already have basic writing skills, an instructor would still point out flaws and errors, but the students could have more freedom right off the bat. Although as an instructor I am aware of the necessity of practicing, I hope to provide an array of tools to students as they engage in the writing process instead of specific items to check off of the to-do list.

In all, we can see that diversity in instructional methods is important to the writing process, especially in teaching students with diverse backgrounds that do not mirror the writing style that is practiced here in the US. If we can find ways to engage the learners and pique their interest, it may go far in teasing out better writing quality in our students.