{"id":49695,"date":"2018-08-12T05:32:06","date_gmt":"2018-08-12T09:32:06","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/admin.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/?p=49695"},"modified":"2018-08-03T15:56:30","modified_gmt":"2018-08-03T19:56:30","slug":"writing-teaching","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/writing-teaching.html","title":{"rendered":"Teaching Writing"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

I got permission to share this quote from a Facebook friend, which I think sums up an incredibly important and neglected point related to education:<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on my experience in high school, university, and graduate school and now as I\u2019m tutoring a refugee college student in English, no one ever teaches writing. They assign writing. They grade writing. But no one TEACHES writing. Writing instruction doesn\u2019t exist. It\u2019s just testing what we haven\u2019t taught over and over again until the student either figures it out or gives up\u201d (Becky Rouzer Northcutt).<\/span><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

A colleague of mine introduced me to a nice terminological distinction that captures this point: it is the difference between \u201cteaching to write\u201d and \u201cwriting to teach.\u201d Most professors do the latter, assigning writing to help students learn content and evaluate whether they have understood it. That isn\u2019t the same thing as instruction in how to write well. And indeed, sometimes the content-oriented focus can distract from teaching writing, whether because the faculty member doesn\u2019t spend time on it or because the student feels that they must spend all their time on researching content. Often both issues are probably factors.<\/p>\n

Is this true to your experience either as a student or as an educator, or perhaps both? What are some of your best experiences of learning to write, and having someone else facilitate that learning?<\/p>\n

Of somewhat related interest elsewhere:<\/p>\n

Writing doesn\u2019t always get mentioned on lists of crucial 21st century skills that one needs regardless of major<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Angira Patel explained why studying the humanities helps one become a good doctor.<\/a><\/p>\n

Time<\/em> asked what happens to Valedictorians<\/a>.<\/p>\n

I wonder how many people are vague or misinformed about what the liberal arts are and why they are called that<\/a>.<\/p>\n

There was a challenge to universities to think about what our role is in a world in which students never graduate<\/a> \u2013 i.e. in which lifelong learning isn\u2019t merely an ideal but a necessity.<\/p>\n

There is evidence that \u201cstudents majoring in the liberal arts and sciences saw bigger increases in \u201ccritical thinking, complex reasoning, and writing skills\u201d than other majors.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I got permission to share this quote from a Facebook friend, which I think sums up an incredibly important and neglected point related to education: \u201cBased on my experience in high school, university, and graduate school and now as I\u2019m tutoring a refugee college student in English, no one ever teaches writing. They assign writing. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":136,"featured_media":49725,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[2970,12309,13918],"class_list":["post-49695","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-education","tag-education","tag-teaching","tag-writing"],"yoast_head":"\nTeaching Writing<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"I got permission to share this quote from a Facebook friend, which I think sums up an incredibly important and neglected point related to education:\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/writing-teaching.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Teaching Writing\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"I got permission to share this quote from a Facebook friend, which I think sums up an incredibly important and neglected point related to education:\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/religionprof\/2018\/08\/writing-teaching.html\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Religion Prof: The Blog of James F. 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