School Writing
Posted on March 1st, 2008 by Intrepidteacher
I found the following passage in my RSS feed from a teacher I am getting to know pretty well named Clay. He writes at his blog called Beyond School. It got me thinking about school writing:
School writing: Assignments by teachers who don’t want to read them, to students who don’t want to write them; a perpetual and unnecessary misery upon which hinges the student’s future, and the teacher’s present, livelihood.
I am curious. What do you think about his idea? How can we teachers teach students to write without resorting to what he calls School Writing?
Filed under: General and
Create a free edublog to get your own comment avatar (and more!)
Wow…the definition of school writing is really good and deep. I agree about the fact that school writing is an unnecessary misery. I mean..at the end of the day, not even half of the number of students will really agree on the assignments that was given to them. But sometimes, school writing is just a way to control our minds in a way that we don’t want it to… Something I find really cool is that a few of my teachers don’t take many information out of a book. They create their own ideas and activities that is enjoyable and “real-life”. I think that doing real-world problems and activities are better and sustainable for a student’s knowledge. So…I believe the best way of teaching is: out with these unnecessary assignments..and in with real-life problems and activities.
I think teachers could teach students to write without writing “school writing” by not putting pressure on them, like it has to be at least 600 words. That would just cause the student to think and write of anything just to get done with 600 words. And also give us some examples of fun, intresting writing that would be intresting to us, not the teachers.
Hi, again^^
Yeah, I like how he said about school writing. It is kinda true. Sometimes the teacher don’t want to read it and the student don’t want to do it. I truly agree.
It makes me wonder have you ever actually read our writing assigment? Sometime you even forgot about the assigment. Remember you told us to write about teacher that we really like/ dislike? Until now you still didn’t ask for it..hehe
But I think everyone love to write. It just they never actually think. Cause you told us in class writing makes everyone think. Also, cause eveyone have their own words and style of writing. So, maybe if sometimes we can write about anything we like. Any kind and just up to the student will nice =D
That just what I think.
I agree to what Mr. R’s idea and teachers can help students to write by possibly asking them to just free write and maybe they can come up with some good ideas.
I like what he’s saying and I agree with it. I like writting about stuff I know and about how I feel. I think if we get to write about what we like and stuff we want to write about just for the heck of it. I think we’ll get more out of it.
I like what he’s saying and I agree. There really isn’t a point in writing something that doesn’t interest you, and theres no point in assigning it if teachers don’t want to read it. It would be better to write about something that you’re interested in, that way your writing will most likely be better because you’re writing about something you care about and the teacher will want to read it because it isn’t the same as the other 20 people in your class.
I really agree with this idea, they should start using it in schools. Really, its to much pressure if we have to take so long to write something then someone will not even take the time to read it. So whats the point then?
I wonder why it has to be that way, “Assignments by teachers who don’t want to read them, to students who don’t want to write them”.But I think it has to be that way because then we don’t have anything to motivate us into working, we will just sit there and won’t pay attention and say “oh its not graded so i just won’t do my best on it…oh well”.But I like the fact that there is a teacher out there that knows about all this. I agree with Emad not too much pressure, but you have to be aware about whats going on, a little motivation.
In order to end this dreary cycle I think that teachers shouldn’t teach the curriculum, but instead teach the entire subject without leaving gaps on things that sound cool but aren’t in the curriculum. For example, instead of teaching forms of poetry, teach what you like about poetry and what it means to you and what poetry itself means abroad. I know for a fact that no teacher should teach what they don’t like or understand because then it’s not fun for the teacher and it is for sure not fun for the students because they probably won’t like your monotone voice and they’ll get confused with all the things that you pretend to know.
I have realized now how important writing is, and is needed as a life skill not something that is forced on you in school. I believe he has a really good point about “school writing”. It is defiantly important to be able to communicate through text. In order to stop the perpetual cycle, students need to develop the want to write. They should has be taught how important it can be and what writing has the power to do. Being able to change school writing you need a willing student/writer and also a teacher that is willing also to develop those writers to be able to unschooling.
I agree with what the post says, but I think if we have more choices to what we write and more freedom to our writing, I also think we need some more motivation to help inspire our work. Writing things we dont want to write and that the teacher does not want to read is just dumb, and will not help anyone. The writing where we have to write a certain amount of words is not good because then people just add pointless things to their writing. If we get to write what we want, then we will be able to do a better job.
I defiantly agree. Teachers don’t want to read and we kids don’t really want to write it. I think that if you let the kids decide what to write about we would be more interested in it instead of a teacher telling us to write about.
I agree with this 100%. Most people in school hate writing about what teachers assign. Mr R. has assigned us projects in our reading class and it can be about anything we are interested in or are curious about. I thought it was a really cool idea and it is good because when people research about their interests, they want to know more, and when teachers assign boring projects, students do not put as much effort into that as much as they would on a project that is in their interest.
I liked this post. The link you added here: He writes at his blog called Beyond School.
Hi, Mr. R,
I totally agree on the definition for School Writing. But to anwser your question, I think that when a teacher does give the student a writing assinment, He, or She, should give the topic on what he wants the student to write about, then they should let the student decide what he os She wants to write about in that topic. Sorry if this is a bit too confusing.
Bye!
I agree with joey you sure went in to depth of this. Bringing that information is going to help my blog.
I agree with the comment. I hate writing and I always hate having to write papers for school. I never thought about teachers not reading our papers because I thought they would always read them because it’s their job but now thinking about it I think that teachers only read some papers we write. But the thing is they get mad at us for not doing something but they sometimes don’t do their homework.
I am so surprised that someone actually got the courage to write something like this. Especially because he was a teacher. Hats off to him! Anyways I also think that writing for school misery. I think that teachers should not just give assignments that they don’t want to read. Instead I think that teachers should find a way where the students like to write and teacher can enjoy reading. I think that one of the ways that students would enjoy writing is on a blog. I know this for a fact because I used to think that writing is misery too, and I still do. But with the blog around I started doing somethings that I didn’t do when I was just writing on a piece of paper. I think that all the teacher should have a blog for them and their students. I’m pretty sure that blogging is way funner than writing on a piece of paper!
I liked this post. The link you added here: He writes at his blog called Beyond School. I went to the site and liked it. I am interested in his views and intend to add the site to my RSS reader. I had an idea for your question. What if you told the kids to write a paper as long as they wanted and on whatever topic they want. Then once the papers are turned in be a critic on them making the people feel self conscious making them want to do better. It might work. What do you think?
I agree, I find it much harder to to write school papers than it is to free write.
I agree what pretty much everyone says, it would be hard to not have school writing but make students write. For example, some people (like me before) don’t like writing, and these won’t write unless forced to. A way teachers could make writing more entertaining and worth reading is to make students be aloud to to write about things that they enjoy. What do you others think about this idea?
I completely agree with this post, school writing is pretty much an unnecessary misery. Maybe there are students who like to do school writing, but I certainly am not one of them.
Hi!
I agree to what he said. Maybe you can change the name of ” School writing” into something else. And maybe you can tell the students to write about what they like or what they are interested.
Hey!
I disagree with every single person who left a comment. Writing is SO important because when you get older into like high school and college than you are going to need writing. Think about your college application or a job application. If you dont WRITE a job application and you dont have a job than you will be poor and you cant go to college so you basically just threw your life down the toilet. Do you think writing could be used for something not as important?Yes,No and why?
I think that what the teacher makes you write about is going to change your thinking because if the teacher wants you to write about something that you enjoy you might want to write a paper on it, but if it’s something that you dislike than you might think that it’s pointless and you shouldn’t even care about writing it. Most of the time the teacher grades the paper, so you have to put in your best effort.
Do you think the teacher should try to give the kids more essays on things that kids like more? Why?
-Billy Burrito-
I agree with what Lola said. Maybe commenters should express their thoughts and opinions to what school writing really is. I, actually love writing essays, I love to write anyway! Does it depend on the person to say that his statement is true?
I do not agree with him.
He said that the assignments are given my teachers who don’t want to read them. I think he is totally wrong about that because is he judging all theachers? Do all theachers care to read writing assignments? I think some do.
Also he said that students do not want to write them. There are a lot of students out there that love writing and would enjoy writing an essay.
Basically, I don’t think this person was being specific. It depends on the teacher and student to be sure that they do not like the assignments.
What do you think? Do you agree with the fact that It depends? Are students wasting there time to write for uncaring teachers? Are teachers that like to read kids’ essays wasting their time giving assignments to children that don’t want to write them?
-Pooh Bear
Wow! What a great conversation. I think it is important to realize that we are not saying that students shouldn’t write; we are trying to find a way to make the act of writing more relevant and enjoyable.
I am so glad that students from Mr. Bills? class are joining our conversation. But please also take the time to read some other great student blogs as well. The seventh graders have been working on a unit on Islam and A Wrinkle in Time, while the 8th graders are contemplating the concept of power, the novel The Wave, and the role of labor.
This is a great place to start, but please look around, read, comment and start building some relationships. We look forward to hearing from you.
Please, everyone, stop saying him/her. It gets really confusing because there are so many people talking at the same time.
Thank you
David makes a great point, how do we know whose comment a person is talking about? If it is the writer of the post, you can simply identify him or her as the writer of the post, but if it is another commenter you can identify them like this:
@david made a great point
or
@suzyboots made some very passionate statements.
Well i like school writing sometimes it can be boring but it like school writing. I am so exited all the time because i get to some kind of writing in the classroom like our voicethread. But school can be fun without school you wouldn’t very smart, if you know what i mean. So think again about school writing.
Biff Cunningham
Well, I like his idea, and basically it’s true. I think that teachers could teach students how important writing can be, and what you can achieve by writing, by giving assignments that apply to us, something that is interesting, something that we can connect to. Because if teachers just give students some random writing assignment they can’t get into, they won’t try very hard, and their writing won’t improve.
[...] though, we did a lot of work on the blogs and such. On Monday, Mr. R introduced us to a post titled School Writing written by one of his fellow blogging colleagues. Mr. R’s friend wrote about how pointless [...]
[...] is bigger than the number of tests we took in Humanities all year!! Mr.R wrote a very good post on School Writing and I hope other teachers will feel the same way about the post. In Band, we learned some helpful [...]