Writing to Simply Write (aka my one-pager)

I love writing. I love forming words that shape human emotion, I love creating riddles out of preconceived answers, and, most of all, I love conquering the monster of a blank page. I love how something as simple as a grocery list can form itself into a masterpiece. Take for example John’s use of sausage as inspiration for interpreting a poem. While his professor might see this as a “reach”, to writers like me, I thought it was brilliant. To me, these “reaches” are the best part of writing. Using the image of sausage to create an interpretation of a poem is not only conquering the blank page, but brutally sucking the life out of it. And that is why I love writing. Something as teacher’s we must remember, however, is that not everyone in the world appreciates the challenge of a blank page like we do.

            So, why do some of our students see writing as something to be afraid of?  Many of our students will inevitably favor science or math over the classes we will be teaching, and there is nothing wrong with that. Where a problem does arise, however, is when students do not understand that in order to be a functioning member of society, they must be able to write. Thomas Newkirk writes in his book, Holding on to Good Ideas in a Time of Bad Ones, that no matter what job field a student will someday go into, they will need to write. He states, “The amount of paperwork generated for one Special Education student is phenomenal; police officers need to be skilled at writing reports of arrests; social workers need to create informative case narratives. Exchanges that years ago would have been casual and oral, are now, by legal necessity, done in writing” (56). Everyday tasks like sending a professional e-mail will unavoidably require humans to form coherent sentences—it is our responsibility as teachers to educate youth on how to do this.

            Newkirk raises a good point about this issue when he questions why there is not more emphasis put on writing classes.  He writes, “…the teaching of literature of any kind required advanced training while the teaching of writing can… be assigned to relatively inexperienced graduate teaching assistants” (53). He believes that students learn to write in order to aide in the process of comprehending literature. After further thinking about this, I totally agree. Back in high school, the only time I was required to write was when I had to explain how I understood a text. Newkirk writes that, “… at least two of the three objectives for writing were to enhance reading; writing is a means, a vehicle for the enhancement of reading proficiency, not a goal in itself” (52). It is our responsibility as future educators to reverse this thinking, and stand firm in our beliefs about writing.

             It is not that today’s education system is deeming the teaching of writing as “unimportant”, but as Newkirk writes, administrators are incorporating writing into the curriculum as means to enhance the act of reading. It is required to teach students how to write a basic essay, but it is not required to show students how fun writing can be, or how useful it will be in their everyday life. “Students develop ‘basic’ skills, but millions don’t progress from there” (129). Every occupation requires some form of writing skills, and I don’t know about the rest of you, but I get totally irritated when I receive an e-mail from my boss that is filled with grammatical errors.

            It is beyond wishful thinking to imagine a world where everyone loves writing as much as I do, but I know that as an educator someday, I will try my hardest to get my students to appreciate writing for exactly what it is—creating your own, complex, creative, and, sometimes, quirky meanings out of words. I want my students to see writing as a tool that will take them far in life, not just a way of responding to a piece of literary work.