We all hold a lot of beliefs about writing, especially what “good writing” is and how it ought to be taught. But what if a lot of our assumptions are wrong?
That’s the premise of Bad Ideas About Writing (2017), a collection of essays that is also available as a podcast. Lydia Wilkes, who earned her Ph.D. here at IU and now directs Core Composition at Auburn University, first brought this book to my attention. She has first-year writing students read (or listen to) chapters and respond. Dr. Wilkes observes, “What I saw most of all was students who believed they were bad writers realizing that they’ve been hampered by these bad ideas and beginning to repair their relationship with the activity of writing. It was so exciting to see this transformation of their writing identities.”
Is there anything more exciting to a curious person than having an assumption unsettled and thus seeing the world anew? I think the same applies to our teaching traditions. We all benefit from challenges to routine thinking, me included!
If you agree, consider joining the Campus Writing Program’s upcoming Faculty Reading Group or Graduate Student Learning Community. In both, Bad Ideas About Writing will launch our discussions, helping us tackle intriguing questions around how people (learn to) write. Read on for a preview!
No one knows how to write well “in general.” From childhood, I was told I had a knack for writing—that I am a “good writer.” This idea of writing as innate talent caused some confusion when I encountered new writing contexts and initially struggled. If writing’s the thing I’m best at, why is this so hard?! Here’s why: all writing is always done for a specific purpose and audience. For each new writing context we encounter, whether in school or our profession, we will need time to try, fail, and try again. Accepting this (painful) reality can help us overcome the frustrating notion that “students should have already learned how to write before I get them in class,” as well as the idea that only select people can be “good writers.” See the bad ideas “You Can Learn to Write in General” by Elizabeth Wardle and “Writing Knowledge Transfers Easily” by Ellen C. Carillo.
Writing is a process—but the product still matters a lot. To help students learn how to craft complex projects over time rather than throwing something together right before it’s due, many instructors scaffold writing assignments, with deadlines for proposals, drafts, peer reviews, and eventually the final submission. I found that creating lots of milestones helped my students manage their time and think more deeply about their ideas. Yet, focusing on process has some potential pitfalls. For one, students might get the false message that there’s a single correct writing process: first brainstorm, then outline, then draft, then revise, then edit. This linear approach doesn’t work for everyone. Plus, emphasizing process can make the product seem unimportant—but completing writing tasks efficiently really does matter! Dig into the bad ideas “The More Writing Process, the Better” (Jimmy Butts) and “Formal Outlines Are Always Useful” (Kristin Milligan).
Transparent assessment is ideal, but rubrics aren’t necessarily best. I was trained to always talk with my students about evaluation criteria, and to illustrate those criteria concretely by assessing samples in class. These approaches make a course more transparent, with students understanding the instructor’s standards. Yet, I still felt that grading writing was uncomfortably subjective. So, I set up analytic rubrics in Canvas, grids where I would select a score for every criterion and thus generate an overall grade. It actually took a lot of work to get the points in the rubric just right so I’d end up with the grade I intuited the paper should earn. Using rubrics made grading feel more objective and precise, and indeed, they can contribute to more transparent teaching and streamlined grading. But they can also reduce writing to mechanically obeying a checklist, turning an art into a formula. It all depends on how they’re constructed and communicated to students. For both sides of the story, see “Rubrics Save Time and Make Grading Criteria Visible” by Anne Leahy and “Rubrics Oversimplify the Writing Process” by Crystal Sands. On the grading of writing, consider the bad ideas “Grading Has Always Made Writing Better” (Mitchell James) and “Student Writing Must be Graded by the Teacher” (Christopher R. Friend).
Focusing on generational differences in writing habits can alienate us from our students. I was in grad school by the time I got my first smartphone. In comparison, the Gen Z students I’ve taught for the past decade seem to have been constantly connected to the Internet from birth—so they should already be adept at navigating just about any app and composing digital texts, right? Well, in practice, I realized I need to walk students through using features of word processing software that I consider important for communicating effectively (e.g., Spell Check to catch typos, heading styles for accessibility). Phill Michael Alexander suggests we banish the bad idea of “Digital Natives and Digital Immigrants.”
Learn more about the CITL’s consultations, programs, grants, and guidance on the teaching of writing—or email me!
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