THEORY OF WRITING
Struggling Student: Teachers or Students Fault?
“Teachers of writing in all settings should strive to help their students write what matters to their lives, and encourage them to express their voices and tell their stories,” a quote by Emily Strasser. Throughout a student’s educational career, schools enforce the usage of proper writing in all areas. From the age of four, we are taught to match our subjects and verbs and end our sentences with a period. These rules are embedded in us from a young age yet most students, even in university, still struggle when they are asked to write an essay. Peg Tyre states in her article, “The Writing Revolution,” that “70 to 75 percent of students in grades four through twelve write poorly.” How is it possible that the majority of students preform poorly in writing, if they are learning and relearning the same concepts every academic school year? Some may argue that the reason for this is the students’ laziness or ignorance to their work, however, as a student I can argue that the classroom environment and the teacher had a large influence on my performance in the subject. Teachers have an important role in a student’s success in their subject. Therefore, in order for students to improve their writing, teachers need to create a comfortable environment where the students can write without judgment.
There are many factors in a classroom environment that affect the way a student processes what they’re learning and how they apply what they learned in the assignments. Many students struggle with writing because they are more afraid to fail and embarrass themselves than to try and possibly succeed. Through my own experience, I know this is a common issue among students. During high school, my teachers would ask the students to say their grade for an assignment out loud in class so that they can record them in their grading journal, even though many students did not feel comfortable with this. When a student would say their grade out loud, and it was lower than 70%, the class would erupt with laughter. This discouraged them even further. In her article, “Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard?” Linda Christensen states, “If they get poor SAT scores, low grades on term papers or essay because of language errors, fail teacher entrance exams, they will internalize the blame; they will believe they did not succeed because they are inferior instead of questioning the standard of measurement and those making the standards.” She describes how students will blame themselves for not being good enough at writing, and this drop in their confidence will affect their performance on future assignments.
When students fail without explanation or critique, instead of recognizing where they went wrong, they blame themselves for their failure and lose confidence in their writing abilities (Christensen). To prevent students from feeling ashamed of their grades and how they write, teachers need to create a helpful environment where students can get constructive criticism from them or their peers. This way, students can learn together, and they will not feel like they are not good enough. In “Late Nights, Last Rites, and the Rain-Slick Road to Self-Destruction” by Thomas Osborne, he states “Yet, it was only after comparing papers with a friend of mine that I realized that my essay was completely out of whack.” As a student, it can be very easy to compare myself to my peers and disparage my writing. Therefore, doing peer reviews can help students recognize that there are many ways to write something; instead of falsely thinking that the way they write is not good enough. Critiquing other essays will also help the students learn to locate errors in their own writing, thus enhancing their writing skills and techniques.
Furthermore, no two students are the same. Each student has a diverse background that contributes to how they speak, write and learn. Many bilingual students struggle with writing because their first language is not Standard English (Christensen). Tyre describes a method called “The catch method” that many teachers use to provide a fun environment for kids to learn how to write by giving them creative assignments and they will “catch” the information. However, she moved on to explain that the “catch method” is ineffective for most students because they do not give any writing instruction. Tyre explained, “Kids who come from poverty, who had weak early instruction, or who have learning difficulties, he explains, “can’t catch anywhere near what they need” to write an essay.” As a result, students who were not able to keep pace with this learning method did not learn core topics needed to write successfully, thus leaving them at a great disadvantage to students who were able to. This method could be ineffective for diverse students with different home languages as well because they will not be able to express themselves well without understanding how to write.
However, creative writing with little instruction about grammar, sentence structure and vocabulary will not be effective. Therefore, it is extremely necessary for teachers to emphasize the importance of good grammar and structure while teaching students different forms of writing. Students need to have a strong base of understanding of the fundamental parts of writing, to be able to give a good argument or write a short story. In writing her article on the outcome of the reconstruction of the school's writing department, Tyre deduced:
The school’s success suggests that perhaps certain instructional fundamentals—fundamentals that schools have devalued or forgotten—need to be rediscovered, updated, and reintroduced. And if that can be done correctly, traditional instruction delivered by the teachers already in classrooms may turn out to be the most powerful lever we have for improving school performance after all.
This supports the point that sufficient writing instruction will help improve the way students write significantly.
Learning how to write is a process that requires time and patience of the student as well as the teacher. Students often get frustrated because they do not feel like they are writing about something that matters. As a result of this, they ignore writing assignments or put little effort into it because “it’s useless anyway” and this prevents them from learning and understanding the material. Expressive writing can be just as effective as writing analytically when teaching students how to write. To teach students how to write while also encouraging them to write, teachers should include assignments where students write about topics that they are interested in. Strasser expresses that she believes that teachers assigning expressive pieces will increase the students’ will to learn and help them develop as writers. By expressing their own ideas in writing, students will feel more confident with sharing their pieces with the teacher and their peers. Also, they will understand and learn more at the same time.
In conclusion, many argue that students struggle with writing due to laziness or blatant disregard for their work. However, there are other factors that significantly affect the way students write. Students see ‘bad grades’ and immediately blame themselves for not being a better writer. They feel a sense of hopelessness and decide to avoid writing altogether. Teachers can improve their self-confidence through constructive criticism and peer reviews, thus creating a non-judgmental environment in the classroom. Students also struggle with writing because they do not know the basic rules of writing. An improvement can be made with the ways teachers give writing instructions. Finally, to keep students interested and motivated to do their work, teachers can encourage students to tackle topics they care about and can express themselves freely in the classroom. Using these techniques, teachers can create a healthy environment in the classroom for students to learn and improve.
Works Cited
Christensen, Linda M. “Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard?” The English Journal, vol. 79, no. 2, 1990, pp. 36-40.
Osborne, Thomas. “Late Nights, Last Rites, and the Rain-Slick Road to Self-Destruction.” Stylus: A Journal of First-Year Writing, vol. 2, no. 2, 2011.
Strasser, Emily. “Writing What Matters: A Student’s Struggle to Bridge the Academic/Personal Divide.” Young Scholars in Writing, vol. 5, 2008, pp. 146-150.
Tyre, Peg. “The Writing Revolution.” The Atlantic, Oct. 2012.