Summary Of Teaching About Writing, Righting Misconceptions

Revisualizing Composition, by Jeff Grabill along with his fellow co-authors is a paper about a study carried across seven different universities across the United States Of America. Each university ranks differently in terms of various statistics such as enrollment, size and setting, therefore participants have different styles and approached towards writing. Following the standard survey method, a series of questions based on 30 different types of writing, were ranked in terms of popularity and value.

Composition 1, also known as English 101 or FYC (First Year Composition) is an entry-level course taken by a majority of college students to introduce them to college-level reading and writing. FYC is a prerequisite course at many colleges and universities and therefore must be taken before students can enter into courses specific to their major. Though FYC serves as a bridge to college-level reading and writing many students and even some compositionists (those who teach writing in a college or university) do not see the relevancy of the course and instead view FYC as a course with very little applicability within the majors and future careers of college students. Others, including Nathalie Singh-Corcoran, believe FYC is a crucial prerequisite course that does teach skills crucial to the futures and lives of college students. In her essay, Composition as a Write of Passage, Nathalie Singh-Corcoran first, speaks to the purpose and overall goals of an FYC course before explaining how the skills learned in FYC can actually be applied to the majors and future careers of college students.  From the very beginning of her article, Singh-Corcoran establishes a strong foundation from which she can reach her main audience, but, she fails to support her main points in the best possible way by a very sparse use of non-anecdotal or personal experience based evidence.

First and foremost writing has always been a bit of a challenge for me. My writing in high school was mostly regarding essays about a book I was assigned to read and analyze. I've noticed that there's a difference between my writing in high school and the essays i've wrote so far in college. My writing in college seems to be far more formal and includes complex wording. My writing in college tends to be longer than most essays i wrote in high school and far more detailed.

Thonney states, “a study of scholarly research articles from six disciplines provides insight about academic writing that composition instructors can use to prepare students to write across the curriculum” (2011 pg. ). Moving forward, Joseph Williams and Lawrence McEnerney’s essay, “Writing in College” targets students currently enrolled in college which is clear from the title itself and its first opening sentence at the beginning of the first paragraph. The author states, “Some students make very smooth transitions from writing in high school to writing in college, and we heartily wish all of you an easy passage” (Williams and McEnerney page 1). Throughout the essay, the author provides a set of structure and tips that first year college students should know when writing an academic paper. Among this paper, we are able to see that there are students whose instructors are dissatisfied with their paper because it is “lacking something” ( Williams and McEnenery’s pg1 ), it isn’t “quite there” or “You haven’t change”. Both passages consist of informative research that first year college students can identify themselves.

“The Novice as Expert: Writing the Freshman Year” reflected my writing experience while I transitioned from elementary writer to a critical writer. Sommers and Saltz write, “freshmen need to see themselves as novice in a world that demands ‘something more and deeper’ from their writing than high school” (Sommers and Saltz 134). This line highlights the hardship that most students face when trying to write successfully. My earlier written works were much weaker than my current pieces because I often wrote for the sake of passing the class. While developing my writing, I focused on the new ideas that were introduced rather than limiting my argument to familiar techniques and ideas. Because of my new attitude towards writing, I began to demand

In high school, we were taught to meet the expectations that standardized tests required us to meet. When taking a standardized test, I had to focus on illustrating that I understood what I have read and usually wrote my paper in a book report style. In college, professors do not only want to make sure you have done the required reading, but also see that you are able to make a critical judgement of what you have read as well. Another difference between the writing that I have done in high school and the academic writing that I have done in college is the research methods that I use. Students in college must go into depth when researching. Resources when researching could be the library, online resources, and scholarly articles. In high school,

A college student’s first-year of writing is important for it needs to target on learning how to write and should also involve inquiry-based research writing. Unfortunately, students are frequently given limited guidance in their writing, and are “expected to find, come up with, or decide on a question quickly and to use that question to direct their research” (7). Academic writing is difficult to learn and teach and the first-year writer battles to interpret what is expected of them and how to create it.

As a college student it is important to take writing as a communication skill very serious it's best that you consider English class as a gift or a tool in life. But writing can be hard in college when it comes to essays, and class work but as you as you learn more in English the better you get at it. Here is one example that I found in this article, your success with academic writing depends upon on how well you understood what you are doing as you write and then how you approach the writing task in the near future that right there is something that I would follow when it comes to academic writing that is one example from Lennie Irvin that inspired me to keep writing in English class. For writing everyone has an idea about something I mean most people have crazy ideas about what they are doing when they write an essay about anything for example people would write about US laws, governments, court systems, military, the media, or anything on a subject that would help you on an essay for anything or on anyone. The myths about writing some writers will write

When you think of high school and college you would expect two different strategies and standards that are to be done. In high school most people are use to the method most teachers taught us which was the 5 paragraph essay. That's what was required for us as a writer when we were in high school but now that I have read and seen what is really expected I notice that what real writing is, the ability of being able to express yourself as much as possible without having boundaries. In high school students are just use to their teachers giving them the freedom of writing whatever they want but yeah being able to concrete their opinion in such a short writing structure. Some valuable tips that are given to us as writers is being able to be open mind and write using the conversation method.

One of the biggest debates in composition theory seems to be the notion of fostering the “creative impulse” versus “structure” in the writing classroom. We have run into this argument time and again in class, and it is waged on a larger scale in the “Bartholomae and Elbow Debate” in terms of academic versus writing centered classes. In class we have discussed “structure” as grammar, and the “creative impulse” as the desire students have to break the rules of language in their own creative endeavors. Bartholomae and Elbow provide us with natural extensions of this argument in their own debate. The “academic classroom” according to Bartholomae is more beneficial to students, as they gain a sense of intertextuality and learn how to write and

Experience shapes us, randomness shapes us, the stars and weather, our own accommodations and rebellions, above all, the social order around us.

Even though writing is part of our daily lives, being able to put together an academic paper is not as simple as sending a text. Actual college writing can prove to be a lot more difficult and confusing if one does not know what exactly is needed to write a college paper. Writing An essay qualified as college material incorporates strong relation to the audience, knowing one’s identity and authority, and the process of the writing itself.

An elephant, dog, monkey, and fish are all told to climb a tree. Each one of them will receive a percentage based off of how far up the tree they get. The monkey is an adept climber and can reach the top of the tree with ease while the elephant can hardly jump, let alone climb up a tree. Common core forces uniquely different students to perform the same task and scores how well they do. It does not necessarily reflect who they are and all of their abilities, but rather pinpoints a few skills for assessment. Common core acts as a single formula which has been predetermined to work for all students based off of a geographical region. It is impossible to tailor to everyone’s needs but we should not assume that everyone learns the same. Teaching writing by using a formula lends itself to common core standards and might not necessarily help a student become a better writer.

Writing is something that every student needs to be taught the importance of and how to do it well. Teachers have the ability to make every student a great writer; teachers just have to give students the tools to accomplish that. “Developing fluency in writing has always been a fundamental aim of education, even if the promise has never been fully realized.” (National Commission on Writing) Writing is just putting our thought down on paper and making sure that they make sense and are organized. All students can learn to do this it just takes proper instruction early on. This also means teachers have to have the time to teach writing and allow the student’s time to write as well.

Writing, according to the students, is a secondary in comparison to how the other skills are thaught such as reading and listening. The students view writing in ELI a subordinate skill that is used to practice vocabulary and grammar with limited attention put on the writing skill per se. It is used to reinforce vocabulary items taught in the reading, practice grammatical rules, and recompose correct sentence structure containing the topic assigned. Teachers expressed that writing is a sub skill. Teacher E says, “[i]t’s a sub skill of course. It’s a sub skill but they are marked on it” (D3, line172). Like teachers, students perceive writing in the same way, Banan observed that teachers do not give much importance to teaching writing: