Writing Without Instruction

            When I read chapter one of Teaching Adolescent Writers by Kelly Gallagher, he listed ten things that are done wrong within secondary schools today. In the list, item number two stated that “writing is sometimes assigned rather than taught” within classrooms today (Gallagher, 11). He goes on to explain that teachers seem to assume that students can write and there for assign writing assignments that the students may not have been taught to do.

            This stood out to be because I have seen how this can change the course of a student’s education. When I entered college, I was in a class where we had to write an opinion essay for a history class. I went on to write the paper and did well on it, but most of the class had to do re-writes and take part in a lesson on how to write an opinion essay. You would think that students at this level would be able to write an opinion essay and understand the components of it, but you could see the frustration in my professor when he had to explain the basic steps of creating a thesis statement and argument to a paper.

            When I was in high school, we were taught how to write essays through basic steps. First we were given the characteristics of the essay. We were told how to identify who the audience was in another paper and how to identify the thesis and central argument. Second, we would read numerous example essays and practice identifying the different characteristics of it to find the works purpose. My teachers would give us a wide range of writer’s works so we weren’t limited to just one person’s style of writing. Third, we would practice writing essays on our own and peer-edit our work so we could be sure that we were ready for our final essay. This step could take a few weeks if needed so students were given the chance to succeed.  The fourth and final step was to write a final essay in which we showed our mastery skills of writing essays and try to demonstrate our understanding of our topic and writing methods.

            This approach seemed very effective within the classroom. Students were given the support they needed in order to succeed, but were also given choices and freedom as to the topic they wrote about. This method also supplies solutions to many issues that Gallagher noted in his essay such as not doing enough writing, prior knowledge and interests students, and having students do most of the work.

            It is hard to imagine that schools are being so passive of the needs of the students and the understanding that they need more support and understanding of the topics at hand. I agree with Gallagher that more attention should be placed on teaching writing material rather than strictly assign it. Nothing will be gained from writing without instruction.