The Importance of Learning All Forms of Writing

After reading both articles by Peg Tyre and Emily Strasser, I was perplexed. Each article emphasizes the importance of learning one form of writing over the others, however, I agreed with both of them. It begs the question, is it important to learn all forms of writing?

Emily Strasser wrote an article called “Writing What Matters: A Students Struggles To Bridge The Academic/Personal Divide” that addresses the issue of students not writing enough personal pieces. Strasser believes that although knowing how to write strong persuasive essays is necessary, it is also just as important to know how to write expressive essays, consisting of the student’s thoughts, ideas, interests and beliefs. She explains how her “love affair” with writing began when she was in the eighth grade. Her teacher, Janna, focused mainly on free writing and expressive essays to allow the students to be creative with their work and encourage them to write. Throughout the article, Strasser describes why she thinks personal writing is important and ways that it helped her with her writing courses.

I agree with Strasser on all points. As a student, I find it more interesting to write a personal piece that I am passionate about. English literature is a mixture of many different writing techniques. No piece mirrors another and each essay contains a melting pot of writing techniques and genres. For teachers to focus mainly on persuasive, or expository writing, is a crime against the students’ potential to reach greater heights in their knowledge of literature. Throughout my years of schooling, my English teachers have given me the opportunity to write in the different writing styles and I think this has enhanced my ability to combine them to create a greater piece. However, when grading the pieces, the teachers focused solely on grammar and sentence structure rather than the content of the essay as well. Strasser explained, “The devices of grammar and rhetoric remain superficial skills until a writer employs them to express important and powerful feelings, thoughts, and ideas.”

Strasser’s article is very different to Peg Tyre’s “The Writing Revolution” where Tyre discusses the importance of giving writing instructions to students. She stresses that although it is good to compose strong personal pieces, it is just as important to teach students how to write strong persuasive and argumentative essays. Strasser’s article explains the exact opposite. Tyre describes the situation at New Dorp High School, where students struggle greatly with writing analytically due to a lack of proper writing instruction. Tyre’s article was based off an interview with Monica Di’Bella, a student who attended New Dorp High School and also struggled greatly with writing. Throughout her article she describes the major reform New Dorp High School underwent to improve the student’s grades in English literature. The new teaching techniques they implemented improved the student’s performance greatly.

Even with each of these articles arguing an opposing side, I still agree with both of them. Tyre argues in her article that an important reason students in New Dorp High School fail to write at a higher level is due to a lack of skill in writing analytical and expository essays. She referred the reader to the “catch method,” a popular method used by teachers for decades to teach students literature. The main goal of that method was to provide a fun environment for kids to learn how to write by giving them creative assignments and they will “catch” the information. This replaced traditional classes where teachers teach grammar and essay structure to students. However, she moved on to explain that the “catch method” is ineffective for most students. 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.” Therefore, students were not getting taught how to approach writing creatively, or how to write persuasive and expository essays. Their performance and grades suffered in higher classes that required higher-level writing.

On the other hand, Strasser, who began her article by describing what Stanley Fish wrote in a 2002 Chronicle of Higher Education article. She said, “He argues that beginning writing courses should teach grammar and style only, while students’ opinions and experiences should be dispensed with immediately.” She immediately argues against that and explains that there is more to writing than “sophisticated sentence structure and nuanced word choice.” Strasser expresses her belief that the ability to create perfectly structured sentences with exquisite grammar is useless, if they cannot use it to effectively express beliefs, interests or ideas. As a student herself, she experienced being most interested in writing personal essays using persuasive and rhetorical techniques and seeing her writing develop. Therefore, being a successful writer to her, means that one can draw from inner beliefs, ideas, and opinions along with having good grammar and rhetoric to write a meaningful piece.

Both of these sources describe the importance of learning certain aspects of literature. Strasser stresses the importance of creative and expressive writing for successful writer, where as Tyre argues that training in persuasive and expository writing is necessary for students to be successful in school. Each of them has strong points that I agree with and I think that it is important for teachers to teach both creative and expository essays.

Works Cited

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.