I agree that writing is important, the (average) American school is not teaching it well, and that it is partially due to topic-apathy.
I would like to add that, in my opinion, an additional reason for the badness of writing education is just not writing enough. This might be a result of students thinking writing is just not important, taking the least-writing pathway, and still complaining (I was such a high schooler). Not sure how you fix that.
Great piece. A couple of thoughts, since I teach writing privately as "enrichment" for those students whose parents recognize their children are not writing *well* even as school claims to be teaching writing.
Funding isn't the issue, at all. The schools are better funded than ever in history, and yet writing instruction is worse than ever. What we have is a misallocation of funds towards surveillance (Social Emotional Learning claims to help them learn to manage their emotions, but it's mostly a way for the companies that make the questionnaires and the gov't to data mine the kids to create a "digital persona" for each of them that is intimately acquainted with their emotional profile...I'll leave you to hypothesize why they might want that, I have plenty of theories, but we're not here to discuss those), and preparing students for standardized tests, which include some writing, but don't necessarily require it (the ACT writing portion is optional), and even those that do require it want the kind of formulaic sample you describe because they have to be "graded" objectively (thus the term "standardized test").
If something is not taught and recorded as DATA by the state, it doesn't get taught (unless you have a super committed rogue teacher who is not only willing to do the extra work, but who is willing to withstand complaints from parents, students, and administrators who will demand to know they the OTHER students don't "have to" do this extra writing. Then this rogue hero also needs to be willing to defend his or her job if and when students do less well on the standardized test than the school wants them to. You can almost guarantee the teacher who didn't conform will get the blame, even if the students improved dramatically relative to how they WOULD have done without this teacher's help.
In public schools especially these days, no good deed goes unpunished. If the parents and students don't protest you right out of your job, your colleagues won't appreciate you "making them look bad" by doing extra."
I'd add one thing: write to teach others, especially in school. One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it. Moreover, one of the best ways to engrain an idea within yourself is to teach it to someone else in your own words. What better way than writing it down? Think about it for a second.
Imagine a broken group of students: one group learns a lesson, while another studies a different one. Both are brought together. Then, one group teaches the novice section the lesson they learned, possibly even writing it out for them. And the other group can do the same. Talk about a real world lesson about using knowledge, writing, and interaction.
I agree that writing is important, the (average) American school is not teaching it well, and that it is partially due to topic-apathy.
I would like to add that, in my opinion, an additional reason for the badness of writing education is just not writing enough. This might be a result of students thinking writing is just not important, taking the least-writing pathway, and still complaining (I was such a high schooler). Not sure how you fix that.
Great piece. A couple of thoughts, since I teach writing privately as "enrichment" for those students whose parents recognize their children are not writing *well* even as school claims to be teaching writing.
Funding isn't the issue, at all. The schools are better funded than ever in history, and yet writing instruction is worse than ever. What we have is a misallocation of funds towards surveillance (Social Emotional Learning claims to help them learn to manage their emotions, but it's mostly a way for the companies that make the questionnaires and the gov't to data mine the kids to create a "digital persona" for each of them that is intimately acquainted with their emotional profile...I'll leave you to hypothesize why they might want that, I have plenty of theories, but we're not here to discuss those), and preparing students for standardized tests, which include some writing, but don't necessarily require it (the ACT writing portion is optional), and even those that do require it want the kind of formulaic sample you describe because they have to be "graded" objectively (thus the term "standardized test").
If something is not taught and recorded as DATA by the state, it doesn't get taught (unless you have a super committed rogue teacher who is not only willing to do the extra work, but who is willing to withstand complaints from parents, students, and administrators who will demand to know they the OTHER students don't "have to" do this extra writing. Then this rogue hero also needs to be willing to defend his or her job if and when students do less well on the standardized test than the school wants them to. You can almost guarantee the teacher who didn't conform will get the blame, even if the students improved dramatically relative to how they WOULD have done without this teacher's help.
In public schools especially these days, no good deed goes unpunished. If the parents and students don't protest you right out of your job, your colleagues won't appreciate you "making them look bad" by doing extra."
I'd add one thing: write to teach others, especially in school. One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it. Moreover, one of the best ways to engrain an idea within yourself is to teach it to someone else in your own words. What better way than writing it down? Think about it for a second.
Imagine a broken group of students: one group learns a lesson, while another studies a different one. Both are brought together. Then, one group teaches the novice section the lesson they learned, possibly even writing it out for them. And the other group can do the same. Talk about a real world lesson about using knowledge, writing, and interaction.
Great points!