I have always been a writing teacher since I started teaching ten years ago. I taught freshmen composition and advanced writers’ workshop for many years, in addition to teaching ESL and EFL writing classes. Looking back at these past experiences, I think the most crucial skill I expect my students (L1 and L2 writers alike) to develop is the capacity of expressing critical thoughts via fluent, accurate, and sophisticated writing practices.
Almost all novice writers are intimidated by the idea of writing long and complex academic papers, because they often lack confidence in themselves; they are afraid that whatever they have to say are not meaningful to their audience. And therefore comes the question: If our writing is viewed as not meaningful, why should we bother to write at the first place? To answer this question, we have to realize that the function of writing, especially beginners’ writing, is not to contribute to some important missions of human beings but rather to learn. Yes, to learn and digest the knowledge takes time, and writing is an ideal way to process the knowledge we are learning. The top thing to keep in mind in beginner writing is to have a concrete learning goal in mind (e.g., comparing the wedding rituals in different cultures). Students need to be able to express their purpose of writing even before they start writing. With this goal in mind, they can then start brainstorming and putting ideas down on a paper. Accuracy and Complexity always come later with more practice.
2. The Importance of Writing Skills
Writing skills are not innate and must be learned. This being said, writing skills are designed to help fulfill important functions in human societies, e.g., trading. Writing is an important way of record keeping; something written on paper becomes a permanent record and can be traced later on if needed to. Writing skills are essential for modern societies because of the multifaceted functions they are deemed as useful. For example, no contemporary education can be done without the teaching and learning of writing. The same is true in many other fields, such as law and business.
3. Knowledge about Writing, Writing Processes, and Writing Pedagogies
This semester, I am curious to know more about the differences between writing in L1 and in L2, the dynamic features of writing processes, and writing pedagogies employed in different writing contexts, such as in disciplines other than humanities.
4. Diversity of Writing Systems
The diversity of writing systems is a fascinating topic. My first encounter with this is via the following website: http://explore.noodle.org/post/51237010247/mapping-the-worlds-writing-systems-also-see-this. The differences in writing systems are usually the first thing novice writers take notice. To get familiar with a new writing system, one has to first comprehend the basic building block of writing. For example, the basic building blocks in English writing are 26 letters, which are much simpler compared to Chinese, which has hundreds of logograms, i.e., a logogram is a basic character that carries one grammatical meaning. More details on different writing systems can be found in the following video:
I completely agree with your comment about how crucial it is to write, and write well. I always tell my students they need to write well so they can do better in their future careers. I normally leave it at that, but you gave examples that I hadn't really thought about such as record keeping.
ReplyDeleteI had a student tell me once, "I'm never going to use English once I leave school." Ummm, I really didn't know how to respond to that because it would have been rude to laugh. I don't think students realize how hard it is in the real world (outside of school) for people who are illiterate. Maybe having someone speak to students about how hard it is would help them, or maybe having a second language adult explain how hard it was speaking to people in a country where they did not know the language, and how they learned the language to be able to move better in their new country.