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Two students were sitting on a bench near the college campus talking about their English teachers’ methods of teaching writing.
“I really like the way Mrs. Jones teaches. I get a real feel for writing,” the tall brunette, Tosh, told her friend as she gestured inarticulately with her hands.
“I think Mr. Smith is a great writing teacher. I think my work is really coming along nicely,” the petite blonde, Gwen, said, her hands sitting delicately in her lap.
“How does Mr. Smith teach you about writing?” Tosh asked as she pivoted her body to look closely at Gwen.
“I think he’s brilliant, he uses this technique called “Free Writing.” He just tells us to write whatever we feel like writing and not to stop until he says so,” Gwen replied as her hands twitched, as if she wanted to move them with her talking but kept them in her lap.
“What about grammar and all of the writing dynamics, are they still used?” Tosh tilted her head in question, waiting for Gwen’s response.
“Um, I don’t think they are. We just write what pops into our head, no stopping remember?” Gwen looked at Tosh as if she missed the entire conversation.
“How could you write all that and not want to go back and fix the grammar mistakes, I would never be able to do that.” Tosh nodded sagely at her own words.
“She teaches all of the different writing styles, the proper use of punctuation, and many other things that are important to college writing.” Tosh said as she turned slightly away from Gwen.
“No need to get so defensive about it. Come on lets get a coffee from Starbucks.” Gwen held her hand out to Tosh and they started walking to the campus coffee shop.
If only all arguments ended as Tosh and Gwen ended theirs. Not all people can change their way of thinking if offered a coffee. There are many people who still fight about what is the correct way for a teacher to teach in a writing classroom. Should the teacher be practically nonexistent or should they become the most important person in their students writing career. What is the best way of teaching in a writing classroom?
One method for teaching in a classroom is to give the students more free will. If the student feels more in charge of their work, maybe it will be better and more interesting work. If the teacher tells a student “write whatever you want” it might just be a brilliant work of art, or it could be horrible. The main thing is that the student gets to choose what is written about. When given a topic that they have two write about and not given at least a few different things to write about the student might hate the subject and decide to write a horrible essay because of it. If the student takes charge then they have all the answers to what is being written about. They feel superior in the knowledge that they are important writers just as much as any other person is. It is a good feeling for these people to write what they may perceive to be brilliant works of art.
Being a teacher in a “teacherless” class might be confusing but it could help the student. If done as Peter Elbow had it done in his classes it could be a really good tool for helping students learn. If the teacher does exactly as the student does then they are helping the student. Even just having the student critique the teachers own writings can help them learn better writing skills.
The most well known way of teaching a writing class is to be the main authority in what the student does. The student will write on what you want them to, the way you want them to, and for how long you want them to. Depending on what type of writing class the student might be taught to write papers differently (e.g. maybe they want certain headers for their students papers). Different classes are all unique and every teacher teaches what they think will help their student most in the end. Some teachers might seem stricter than others but a lot of them still are the leaders of the classroom, their word is law. You, the student, write what they say is proper for the class.
To be the opposite of a “teacherless” class the teacher has to show that they are there to help the students become better writers than they are. If the teacher is to do as Bartholomae thinks they will teach the way they were taught. The teacher will teach using text that they were taught with, they will use the past, they will have students quote or paraphrase, and they will teach the proper way to cite the sources that they used. Teachers can be fair to their students and still be strong role models.
Or maybe there is a third way to teach writing. It might be a better way to teach if some of both Elbow’s and Bartholomae’s styles were combined together to make an even better way of teaching a writing class. When I was younger one of my teachers taught a way that used both of the techniques together. At the beginning of every class we would have to do a free write. Unlike Elbow’s free write there were times that we had to write what the teacher wanted and not what we thought. It could help others to think about different ways to write during one simple free write session. The teacher taught many different styles or writing (e.g. poetry, short story, descriptive, creative) but always let us, the students, have the final decision on what was actually written in class.
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There might never be a complete answer for which type of writing is better. Maybe Elbow’s way is right, but then again it might be Bartholomae who has the correct way of thinking. Teachers will always teach in a way that they think is correct, that is how it will probably always be.
Posted by chibihi on September 15, 2008
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