Summary Of Call A Meeting With Your Writing Teacher Self By Ruth Culham

It is essential to understand that classes taken in grade school do not give students a full understanding of each subject. With the topic of writing, there will always be a new lesson to learn, an aspect to improve, or a differing way to explain. Author Craig Vetter states in Bonehead Writing, “This is your enemy: a perfectly empty sheet of paper. Nothing will ever happen here except what you make happen.” Each story, essay, or response comes from a writer’s experiences. With each attempt at a new piece comes an underlying story of emotions the writer is facing. Each person’s writing is unique and the ideas people have are related to their past experiences and what they believe to be familiar with when deciding which writing style to use. As a high school student, I have learned many things about writing that helped me become the improved writer I am today, but the most essential advice I have received is practice makes perfect. Although there is no actual perfect way of writing, I have discovered that each essay I write, my writing improves. It is easier to spot mistakes, find areas to improve, and ponder elevated word choice to use.

Born in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1924, Donald M. Murray taught writing for many years at the University of New Hampshire, his alma mater. He has served as an editor at Time magazine, and he won the Pulitzer Prize in 1954 for editorials that appeared in the Boston Globe. Murray’s published works include novels, short stories, poetry, and sourcebooks for teachers of writing, like A Writer Teaches Writing (1968), The Craft of Revision (1991), and Learning by Teaching (1982), in which he explores aspects of the writing process. Write to Learn, (6th ed,. 1998), a textbook for college composition courses, is based on Murray’s belief that writers learn to write by writing, by taking

Early on McCarthy states the the point of this study and article is to, “Contribute to our understanding of how students learn to write in school.” (234). McCarthy literally wants to make the point that learning to write should be viewed as a growth process from both a social and individual aspect depending on the situation. (234). McCarthy observed a college student as he took three different courses composition I, poetry, and biology. McCarthy explains that through her examination of the the

In Dan Berrett’s article, “Students Come to College Thinking They’ve Mastered Writing,” the idea of freshman thinking they are or must be a refined writer is discussed. Students may think this way coming into college, but their teachers do not. While students might feel satisfied and think that they are prepared with their writing skills, professors found that these students did not necessarily meet the expected level (Berrett 1). Many students reported that they would normally write around 25 hours every week. They said that most of those hours of writing was for more formal purposes like passages to make changes in society (Berrett 1). It was found that one reason the new students might feel this way is that their assumptions about writing differed greatly from those of faculty members and their expectations. One big thing that students will not get for a while, is that good writing is not just listed as a bunch of steps one is to follow that automatically make one’s writing good. Good writing requires one to be in different mental states; it requires the understanding of how to write for different audiences and different reasons (Berrett 2). Berrett includes in the article that writing is not just universal and that in order to do very well, writers must use different forms of writing specifically for their purpose (2). It seems as though students think that, before they even take a class, they are supposed to know everything about writing; in reality, they are supposed to learn new skills and enhance others (Berrett 2). Berrett says that many believe the schools these students previously attended with their test focus might cause these feelings about writing (2). Berrett ends his article by saying that students these days do not think that informal writing actually counts as writing, and that students should practice writing for informal purposes because it can help them (2). Even if they feel like it, students are not fully prepared to write in all contexts when they arrive at college.

Arguably, there are situations where the tone in the text betrays the author’s insistent perspective concerning writing. For instance, the author argues that a student can pass through the writing process successfully if the teacher chooses to shut up and allow the student to write. In reviewing this particular text, one may argue about the choice of words, however, the tonne also elucidates the author’s viewpoint on the involvement of teachers in the writing process. One of the questions the author has prompted but not answered is how the education system as a whole can be transformed to embrace the concept of writing being a process rather than a product. While the idea is sensible and well thought, its applicability in the education system is a challenge, which the author has not highlighted despite writing being under the umbrella of

Everyone knows what writing is to one extent or another, but we all have different definitions of how it should be done and varying degrees of seriousness about the art. We all have a process of writing, but each is unique to ourselves and our own experiences. Annie Dillard and Stephen King are two well known authors who have published many pieces, two of which describe how they view the writing process and let their readers get a peek of what goes on through their minds when they write. These two pieces are Dillard’s The Writing Life and King’s “What Writing Is.”

Writing is a practice that most of us were taught when we were young. We were taught the basics of grammar, how to form a sentence, conjunction words, how to write paragraphs and more. Although we have learned this skill while growing up and have used the skill every year after entering kindergarten, this does not mean our writing process will ensure the best work. The authors that I chose each encourage their audience to excel in the art of writing in their own way to help with the writing process.

In the beginning of this class I looked at writing as a chore. The word “writing” drummed up a vision of a thin man sitting at a cafe with wire rimmed glasses and a goatee. He was wearing dress pants that are too short and crisply creased with a matching vest. He sipped his coffee with his pinky finger curled and was completely lost to the world around him as he typed quickly then paused to read his work. He was born to write and highly organized; a perfectionist. He was all the things I thought I was unable to be, until now.

The writing Revolution is written by Peg Tyre, who is the director of strategy at the Edwin Gould Foundation. He describes an education reform the occurred at Dorp High School, a school which otherwise may have been closed due to poor academic performance. The school's leader, Deirdre DeAngelis, drastically reformed the school’s curriculum and teaching methodology. The faculty, using DeAngelis’ methods, achieved significant success in improving their student’s academic achievements. They did so by focusing on the fundamentals: analytical and structured writing. In the article, Tyre describes the case of

I agree with how Valerle Struss the way she explains how students are supposed to be taught Writing in college. In this day in age, many student struggles with ability to know how to even write a simple sentence. The main reason students in college are not able to do this simple task is because as technology advances more and more people rely on it. This is sometimes a good thing, but not always. People have learned to rely on the technologies they have around them. Which at the end of the day won’t do them any good? So, let’s take the advice of Mrs.Struss and the way she thinks how college students should actually be taught.

In Peg Tyre’s article, The Writing Evolution, he addresses how some students struggled with writing in schools and how more time needed to be spent on teaching the proper aspects of writing. In his article, Tyre mentions a specific high school that took large measures to figure out why their students were doing so poorly on english and writing exams. This particular high school, New Dorp, made a writing revolution in which they placed an intense focus across nearly every academic subject, teaching the skills that underlie good analytical writing (Tyre 4). They received extraordinary results. Pass rates for the English Regents, for example, bounced from 67 percent in June 2009 to 89 percent in 2011 (Tyre 4). The number of kids enrolling in a program that allowed them to take college-level classes shot up from 148 students in 2006 to 412 students in 2011 (Tyre 4).

Logan Pearsall Smith once said, “Fine writers should split hairs together, and sit side by side, like friendly apes, to pick the fleas from each other’s fur.” All be it an overwhelmingly disgusting image, Smith’s words are true when it comes the art and science of putting pencil to paper. In the classroom, students should be able to be vulnerable, honest, accountable and “real” in their writing so that they may grow to become better writers. It is the responsibility of the teacher to insure a quality learning environment that is conducive to these three factors. Observing the writing process and identifying the experiences within, be them personal, direct or indirect, contribute to how the educator teaches students using best practices.

In his essay, "Teach Writing as a Process not a Product," Donald Murray outlines the major difference between the traditional pedagogy that directed the teaching of writing in the past and his newly hailed model. Traditionally, Murray explains, English teachers were taught to teach and evaluate students' writing as if it was a finished product of literature when, as he has discovered, students learn better if they're taught that writing is a process. For Murray, once teachers regard writing as a process, a student-centered, or writer-centered, curriculum falls into place. Rules for writing fall by the way side as writers work at their own pace to see what works best for

In Christensen’s “ Teaching Standard English: Whose Standard?” she discloses about a student she once had named Fred, who had a lingering reluctance in regards to writing. When Christensen finally inquired Fred’s reasoning behind not wanting to writing and he revealed that he didn’t write because he felt that “he couldn’t” (115). Fred’s reluctancey was a manifestation of feeling of discouragement and insecurities he had occupied over his writing. Christensen told Fred that “his writing couldn't be wrong” (115) because the purpose of her course was for them to practice their writing. She advised Fred to write until he found a story he wanted to tell and from there, he would revise until he had something he could feel proud of.

As a child, I remember my first writing experience outside the classroom. For it would teach me more than just putting words together to complete a sentence, but to incorporate the meaning. Entering my third year of elementary school I encountered the most humblest teacher named Ms. Cologne. She was the most good hearted, caring, humane person I met at a young age. She was black with dark straight hair and wore thick framed plastic glasses. Her classroom was bright, full of colors with the ABC’s in cursive writing around the border. Ms. Cologne was the type of english teacher that will take extra time out to walk around and help each student with their classwork. But she was also firm towards reading short articles out of the news