700 years ago during my brief stint teaching freshman comp as a TA I used to tell students that if they were on a football team and at practice the coach said “drop and give me 20” and then “go run a mile” and so on they would not question how this was helping them play football and that writing as an exercise was the same way.
No one ever bought this argument, likely because I was a terrible TA, but I think it still stands.
I’ll be interested to see if it hits with anyone if you do.
The other night my 13yo was asking me for help with an essay and had one of this “And my reason for this is” type sentences. I was about to tell him to cut it when he said, “Oh, I’m going to take that out—I just put it there to help me think,” and then I was very proud for whatever contribution I made to creating this human.
A breakthrough moment for me as a writing teacher was the recognition, like what your son said, that such constructions may be something to delete, but they are also useful tools as part of the writing process. You can get ideas down with them (“to help me think”) and then edit the phrasing to make it tighter and more precise.
Yeah. It took me many, many years to realize that writing is hard for many people. I’d be a much better teacher now than I was 25 years ago, but people say things like this and I think huh, I never would have thought of that.
(That’s not to say that I don’t work at writing—and rewriting—merely that I’ve never struggled with it the way that many do—you know, the way I would struggle if you gave me two pieces of wood and told me to join them together at the right angle.)
Yes yes yes! These are both great. I often tell both my own kids and my students that at least 50% of writing is rewriting. It's definitely work to get things out of your head first, but then they're outside of you and you can look at them and shape them to be better (where "better" can mean clearer, prettier, more organized, whatever is important at the moment).
I have been thinking about this topic a lot lately as well with respect to my students, who often don't see the point of the work they are asked to do. It can be a tough sell when they are just trying to muscle through the term and get the required credits to graduate. But the small-w v. big-w distinction is a great way to frame it. I love your list and your colleagues' responses. It is something that I think more universities need to be discussing in earnest because the loss of the skill is happening faster than the departmental memos can track.
Yeah, I really think that having a conversation about this with students is really important. I find that they're pretty hungry for conversations about meaning, and I think this can be one.
It's very interesting how writing really is almost a kind of super-thinking. Like our thoughts in our heads are often so vague and we can only hold so many ideas at once, but you put them down on paper and they kind of crystallise into something you can return to and see exactly what you were thinking previously to build off of it. It's probably not obvious to non-writers, but I never fully know what I am going to write (and think) about a topic until I've written it.
I think it's especially important not to give away the task of writing to the machines, because those points where we struggle to express ourselves aren't just us trying to find the words for what we want to say, they're us figuring out *what* we want to say. They're crucial decision points, and it's by struggling with them that we get a deeper feel for the problems and a stronger understanding of our own thoughts.
Exactly this! Somebody said--I'm too lazy to check who--something like "How can I know what I think 'til I see what I say?" For me writing is a process of working stuff out. I often discover a lot along the way.
Yes. It's what I try to convince my creative writing students all the time. I have started to say, "Don't steal your struggle. Lean into it. Learn from it. That is what will serve you well for the rest of your life."
Over the course of my teaching career it dawned on me that my students had rarely, if ever, thought about or discussed these aspects/experiences of writing and that, almost universally, the purpose of learning to write was to get good grades on school assignments. Even in writing courses the focus was on doing the writing in the course for some future payoff (what I came to think of as a system of "indefinite future reward").
The thing is that students are eager to have these bigger conversations.
I agree! They really are. I think they find anything that's connected to meaning really worthwhile and they're surprised when they happen in a classroom setting.
I’m curious if either of you have any thoughts about how to sustain these important conversations over the course of a semester. I likewise find that students are eager to discuss the “why” (process) questions early on, but by about midterm, they are overwhelmed by competing priorities and default to focusing on the “what” (product). Perhaps it has something to do, too, with the realities of assessment, but I almost inevitably reach a point where the questions go from “Why does this work matter?” to “What do I need to do to get a good grade?”
I don't have a magic formula for this, but I use specifications grading, which helps keep process front and center: if an assignment doesn't meet the expectation for a certain criterion, they have to revise and resubmit. I constantly remind them that this is a totally normal part of learning, and compare it to if they took a cooking class for fun. They'd be looking for feedback on how to get better, and everyone (them, classmates, teacher) are on the same team. I also encourage them to come and meet with me, since I find in-person conversations are often more helpful than the most detailed written feedback. But yeah. No magic wand.
I love that! Thank you. I bake cookies for my students at the start of the semester to practice Liz Lerman's critical response process, so I am totally going to steal the cooking class metaphor as an effective reminder.
700 years ago during my brief stint teaching freshman comp as a TA I used to tell students that if they were on a football team and at practice the coach said “drop and give me 20” and then “go run a mile” and so on they would not question how this was helping them play football and that writing as an exercise was the same way.
No one ever bought this argument, likely because I was a terrible TA, but I think it still stands.
I like this. They might not buy it, but still. I might start saying this before I offer more complex explanations.
I’ll be interested to see if it hits with anyone if you do.
The other night my 13yo was asking me for help with an essay and had one of this “And my reason for this is” type sentences. I was about to tell him to cut it when he said, “Oh, I’m going to take that out—I just put it there to help me think,” and then I was very proud for whatever contribution I made to creating this human.
A breakthrough moment for me as a writing teacher was the recognition, like what your son said, that such constructions may be something to delete, but they are also useful tools as part of the writing process. You can get ideas down with them (“to help me think”) and then edit the phrasing to make it tighter and more precise.
Yeah. It took me many, many years to realize that writing is hard for many people. I’d be a much better teacher now than I was 25 years ago, but people say things like this and I think huh, I never would have thought of that.
(That’s not to say that I don’t work at writing—and rewriting—merely that I’ve never struggled with it the way that many do—you know, the way I would struggle if you gave me two pieces of wood and told me to join them together at the right angle.)
Yes yes yes! These are both great. I often tell both my own kids and my students that at least 50% of writing is rewriting. It's definitely work to get things out of your head first, but then they're outside of you and you can look at them and shape them to be better (where "better" can mean clearer, prettier, more organized, whatever is important at the moment).
I have been thinking about this topic a lot lately as well with respect to my students, who often don't see the point of the work they are asked to do. It can be a tough sell when they are just trying to muscle through the term and get the required credits to graduate. But the small-w v. big-w distinction is a great way to frame it. I love your list and your colleagues' responses. It is something that I think more universities need to be discussing in earnest because the loss of the skill is happening faster than the departmental memos can track.
Yeah, I really think that having a conversation about this with students is really important. I find that they're pretty hungry for conversations about meaning, and I think this can be one.
It's very interesting how writing really is almost a kind of super-thinking. Like our thoughts in our heads are often so vague and we can only hold so many ideas at once, but you put them down on paper and they kind of crystallise into something you can return to and see exactly what you were thinking previously to build off of it. It's probably not obvious to non-writers, but I never fully know what I am going to write (and think) about a topic until I've written it.
I think it's especially important not to give away the task of writing to the machines, because those points where we struggle to express ourselves aren't just us trying to find the words for what we want to say, they're us figuring out *what* we want to say. They're crucial decision points, and it's by struggling with them that we get a deeper feel for the problems and a stronger understanding of our own thoughts.
Great post!
Exactly this! Somebody said--I'm too lazy to check who--something like "How can I know what I think 'til I see what I say?" For me writing is a process of working stuff out. I often discover a lot along the way.
And thanks! :) I'm glad you liked it.
Yes. It's what I try to convince my creative writing students all the time. I have started to say, "Don't steal your struggle. Lean into it. Learn from it. That is what will serve you well for the rest of your life."
"Don't steal your struggle," I like that!
Over the course of my teaching career it dawned on me that my students had rarely, if ever, thought about or discussed these aspects/experiences of writing and that, almost universally, the purpose of learning to write was to get good grades on school assignments. Even in writing courses the focus was on doing the writing in the course for some future payoff (what I came to think of as a system of "indefinite future reward").
The thing is that students are eager to have these bigger conversations.
I agree! They really are. I think they find anything that's connected to meaning really worthwhile and they're surprised when they happen in a classroom setting.
I’m curious if either of you have any thoughts about how to sustain these important conversations over the course of a semester. I likewise find that students are eager to discuss the “why” (process) questions early on, but by about midterm, they are overwhelmed by competing priorities and default to focusing on the “what” (product). Perhaps it has something to do, too, with the realities of assessment, but I almost inevitably reach a point where the questions go from “Why does this work matter?” to “What do I need to do to get a good grade?”
I don't have a magic formula for this, but I use specifications grading, which helps keep process front and center: if an assignment doesn't meet the expectation for a certain criterion, they have to revise and resubmit. I constantly remind them that this is a totally normal part of learning, and compare it to if they took a cooking class for fun. They'd be looking for feedback on how to get better, and everyone (them, classmates, teacher) are on the same team. I also encourage them to come and meet with me, since I find in-person conversations are often more helpful than the most detailed written feedback. But yeah. No magic wand.
I love that! Thank you. I bake cookies for my students at the start of the semester to practice Liz Lerman's critical response process, so I am totally going to steal the cooking class metaphor as an effective reminder.