I actually know a thing or two about writing. You may not know it by the writing you read here though. This blog is meant to be happy fun writing. A pure form of self-expression. And a lot of fragmented sentences.
This blog is my way of rebelling against all those years of education and being taught how to write a sentence and a paragraph. I knew all the rules of grammar and punctuation. I spelled every word correctly. I knew my adverbs from my adjectives and I never really enjoyed any of it.
When I was in school, there was no room for flexibility. Anytime I made the slightest attempt to add style to my writing, I had points deducted. I knew I was writing fragments from time to time but they were for emphasis. Wasn’t I allowed to do that? I always read Readers Digest (because it was literally the only publication we had at our house, except for the TV Guide). I read articles and humorous stories and excerpts from novels. I wanted to write that way.
In hindsight, I understand that an English teacher’s job is to make sure that you know how to write. That you know how to construct grammatically correct sentences and can deliver clear, cohesive thoughts in a well-written paper. And I kind of assumed things were being taught more or less the same way I had learned them way back when. Turns out I’m wrong.
My mom is raising a 14 year old boy. A middle schooler. He’s been in our family for 9 years. I still don’t know what to call him. He’s like a nephew but really a little brother, even though I don’t see him or talk to him often. I did get to spend time with him last week when I spent hours and hours driving hours Maryland figuring out only where I don’t want to live.
We all got together at my mom’s one night for a nice family cookout and he was working on his English homework. He’s in what they call G&T English (gifted and talented). I’m sure he’s not happy about that because he really doesn’t enjoy English. And I don’t blame him.
It started with a innocent enough discussion. He was reading a boring Charles Dickens novel and working on answering some analysis questions. I joked with him that that’s what Cliff Notes are for.
He looked at me and said, “Oh, we’re not allowed to use Cliff Notes.”
I replied, “Well, nobody is actually allowed to use Cliff Notes but everybody does. It’s the only way I was able to write my paper about ‘Tess of the D’Urbervilles’ in 12th grade!”
Then, somehow, we ended up getting into a discussion about what his teacher does and doesn’t require when writing a paper and I was blown away. Seriously, and not in a good way.
Listen to some of these rules and tell me how this has happened in the last 20 years.
- No sentences can start with A, An, The
- No sentences can start with the same word twice
- No forms of To Be allowed (are, is, was, has, be, been, being)
- No use of Kill words (so, very, a lot, nice, really, interesting, basically)
- Must use only action verbs
There was more, too. I actually was so appalled that I had to take a picture of the framework his teacher used to grade his last paper.
Yeah, I know. I couldn’t really read it after the fact either. But what got me after hearing all these excruciating rules was the reminder of why I hated writing so much for the first few decades of my life.
It was because most of the writing that I did was in a structured, analytical format. Even as I moved into a professional life and entered a more creative field like marketing, I found that I was sticking to a formula and it was dull, boring, and dry.
I started this blog to showcase a more creative side of my writing for future job applications. Little did I know that I would discover that I loved to write.
I was talking to a blogging friend of mine the other day and she told me how she had always loved to write and that helped her pick her college major and career path. It made me think about all the writing I had done as a kind. I wrote and performed a song for my graduating elementary school class. I wrote and performed in a play for my entire 6th grade class. I entered every speech contest there was and won.
Somewhere along the way, writing became a chore and not a form of communication. I’m glad to have rediscovered how much fun it can be but I have fears about what we’re teaching our kids.
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Have I just forgotten what it’s like to have to learn how to write or does this seem a little crazy to you? Or do I just seem a little crazy to you?
37 comments
In answer to your question, yes, this is crazy. I understand gifted and talented programs. I think their great, but that checksheet was ridiculous. I see your point as to why kids wouldn’t want to write also. If I was graded like that I would have said to hell with it too.
Sure, it is very important to understand the rules and be able to follow them, but, clearly, as you know, there is a time and setting for formal writing and writing for entertainment purposes. Maybe some teachers try too hard to keep their kids focused on just the one?
Great post, Fadra.
I made sure I gave him my adult perspective and told him how absolutely ridiculous those parameters are. However, I’m not giving out his grade. For me, it’s just foreshadowing about what kind of parent I will be when my son becomes school age. In other words, I may be a teacher’s worst nightmare.
Gifted children tend to be more creative thinkers and to place such restrictions on that process is just plain crazy.
I was actually in a program in middle school and high school that was a specialized program for us supergeniuses. Basically, we spent a quarter learning what we HAD to learn in terms of curriculum and then spent the other quarter on independent learning projects that we created. We enjoyed learning and I think it’s made a huge impact on me.
This, though, is severely disappointing to me.
Wow that’s just nuts. I think I break all those ‘rules’ regularly. I would totally fail English should I go back to school now.
Talk about practical application to life… When do you ever adhere to rules like that? Even when I was writing as part of my professional job, nobody ever policed my work like that. It’s ridiculous, I tell ya.
I had my husband read this as well, and we are both absolutely STUNNED by these parameters! Nothing would beat the creativity out of me faster than adhering to these rules. Crazy!
Um, yeah, me too. I made him show me exactly how his teacher graded his paper. It had red marks all over it and I would have liked to red mark his red marks. All creativity aside, it’s not even realistic to have to write this way!!
This seems crazy to me now. My mom tells me I was always good at writing and I guess I got decent enough grades on papers through high school and college. But I didn’t start enjoying writing until I started writing brochures and advertising copy, when I felt like I could put the red pen away and just write.
Maybe kids do need “rules” while they’re learning – so that they get basic sentence structure right. But this seems to be a good explanation for why so many people hate to write. And that makes me a little sad.
I don’t think I started just writing until I started blogging. And then I fell in love with it. It’s still work and I still try to generally adhere to rules of grammar and punctuation. Hopefully most of my choices are stylistic ones and not just poor ones.
This seems crazy to me now. My mom tells me I was always good at writing and I guess I got decent enough grades on papers through high school and college. But I didn’t start enjoying writing until I started writing brochures and advertising copy, when I felt like I could put the red pen away and just write.
Maybe kids do need “rules” while they’re learning – so that they get basic sentence structure right. But this seems to be a good explanation for why so many people hate to write. And that makes me a little sad.
These kind of teachers drive me nuts, but I understand why the rules are in place. Art is what happens when you break the rules knowingly, not when you don’t know the rules. Like what jazz is in music… no really good jazz musician doesn’t know how to play “straight” just like no creative writer doesn’t know how to write AP Style.
But (crap, did I just start a sentence with but?) this little exercise with the checklist is just rule-following for the sake of the rules. I’m pretty sure the kids have *no idea* why the rules exist therefore have *no idea* how to break them for creative effect. That is not teaching writing; that is teaching conformity.
My youngest graduated 2 years ago. Both kids (26, 20) had AP English and I kinda quit helping them write because my advice — while making them better writers — was getting them crappy grades (English BA, more newspaper bylines than their teachers, an almost done MA.. on and on with a portfolio of copywriting, tech writing, ghost writing) I would ask them “Why” on the rules and they couldn’t say. “’cause teacher said so.. daaaaaaaaaaaddddddddddddd..” was usually the answer.
Meh.
I’m gonna ignore the fact that you started a sentence with a preposition. But only because I do it too.
You are absolutely right about knowing the rules in order to break them. I totally agree. My little brother/family member definitely needs some work on capitalization and punctuation and for THAT, I totally chastised him.
However, not starting a sentence with the word The or A? That’s just crazy talk. Let’s expand our vocabulary but not at the expense of created a contrived one.
I sort of feel like I can both defend and criticize this teacher.
But let me start with my own writing experience. It sucked.
A HUGE part of writing in school is analytical and or/expository writing. They are trying to not only get students ready for what colleges expect (and there is a LOT of pressure from colleges that “kids don’t know the rules” when they get there), but also for state tests.
State tests and standards are HUGE. As teachers, if students cannot put a comma in the right place and know all the nitty gritty rules? We could lose funding…or our jobs.
It’s still like this today.
As an English teacher, I have very little freedom to do the kind of writing with students that I know will make them love writing. I have to get creative and stick it in wherever I can in non-REQUIRED essays.
I also sort of get these rules…but not for G&T classes.
If you saw the writing a typical 9th grader did, you would want to make these rules too. But I truly believe if you do ENOUGH writing of ALL kinds, these rules and check lists wouldn’t be necessary, and as Jen said, G&T kids tend to be more creative…although our AP kids who are AP in math/science prefer check lists like this in English and History because they are NOT creative, but SUPER analytical.
Anyway…I would HOPE the teacher does this because he/she HAS to and not because he/she WANTS to.
I will say this…most of us have stories about how we hated writing in school…but here we all are…writing.
It only takes one GOOD experience to plant the seed…even if all the rest were sucky.
I knew you would make some great points. You’re right. Who knows how much of this is actually the teacher’s choice vs. what curriculum mandates?
Yes, we absolutely need to teach the rules. It’s crazy because I used to interact with high profile people at a major corporation and you would think that English was not their native language (it was).
I was in G&T type classes up until the 11th grade and totally enjoyed them. Then got to AP English and it left that lasting impression of how torturous writing can be.
And yet, here I am, writing…
Are you kidding me? I would have received a big ol’ F! I break all of those rules every single day.
I’ll just say it’s not his best subject 😉
Those guidelines are more stringent than what I had to deal with in my high school honors classes, but not by much.
I HATED writing in school. When I was very little, I thought about writing books, because reading was my favorite thing. By the time I was in fourth or fifth grade, I was sure that writing was completely beyond me, that I was hopeless, and that I didn’t have even an ounce of creativity inside of me. Those feelings continued through the rest of my school life. I have only now (twelve years after school) returned to my thoughts of writing and realized that most books I love do not adhere to those stringent rules….or as I think of them, creativity killers.
I’m kind of seeing the points of having to learn the rules of writing in order to break them. But what kills me is how most schools don’t put any value on creativity. It’s not something you can necessarily teach but it’s definitely something that should be valued.
Those rules seem to suck all the fun out of writing. How can imagination flow if the kids are so worried about writing to a formula?
Unfortunately, there is no value placed on creativity. We seem to go in one direction or the other and our kids don’t seem to be turning out any better. Boo!
Albert Einstein nailed it:
“Education is what remains after one has forgotten everything he learned in school.”
If Einstein said it, then it means something. I can tell you that most of my learnin’ has come later in life. Good ol’ Albert.
I am currently in my degree work courses of teaching English/Reading for 4-8 and I am getting pretty discouraged already that maybe this area isn’t what I thought I wanted because all the new stipulations! It’s insanity!
I was a teacher once. The worst part of the job was trying to keep up with the lesson plans and matching them up to the stipulated curriculum. I just wanted to teach kids and have them get excited about learning. It wasn’t to be…
I can certainly see your point of view. However, you first have to teach people rules in order for them to be able to break them “properly”, if that makes any sense.
The other matter is more institutional, the whole “everyone’s equal” attitude of the education business is killing our kids and holding the smart ones back (in my observation).
Yes, you are right. There are certain rules of grammar, punctuation, and composition in general. I was a tutor in college for English comp and it was amazing to me the college students that didn’t know how to construct a paragraph or even a sentence!
There’s got to be a better way to teach the rules of writing but then let kids WRITE. It’s a basic communication skill and if we adhere to a strict formula, are we really teaching a skill?
As far as the “everyone is equal” mantra, I taught is a school that believed that way. I can tell you first hand, YES, it absolutely holds the smart ones back. Sad, really.
I loved English and I loved writing…if I had had all these rules back then? I know I would have failed miserably and hated every minute of it!!
that list is absurd! A teacher has to be very annoying to make a student write this way. A student must be very frustrated being in her class. I clearly would have failed her class miserably. 🙂
It’s a “he.” But yeah, I’d be totally frustrated in HIS class. However, he
doesn’t get the greatest grades in the class. This type of checklist, while
annoying, might be his excuse. He DOES need to learn to write well!
Whoa..that’s kind of insane. I’m glad I’m not in that class. I can appreciate that there is some need for structure in school, but I am so glad that he has you to show him that writing can be fun and a creative outlet free from all those rules.
I don’t think he ever reads my blog. But if he does, maybe he’ll think
writing is fun. Or maybe he’ll discover that I’m just a nut!
WOW! My sister is an English Teacher I’ll have to get her take on this. I never enjoyed writing in high school either and with these rules no wonder kids don’t like it. I understand trying to teach them the ‘right’ way to write BUT you also want to give them some room to be creative and find their own writing style. This doesn’t look like fun!
That’s exactly it! Give them structure, teach them the rules, but then make writing a little fun once in a while!
I know this is a bit too late, however – I fully support that stringent criteria that your lil bro’s teacher has imposed.
Why?
I CANNOT BELIEVE THAT AT THE COLLEGE LEVEL, MY JOURNALISM PROFESSOR COMMENTED THAT MY CLASSMATES CANNOT PARAGRAPH. Again, possibly only 10% of the class is ESL. This is my class in FIT. None of my high school teachers in the Philippines have complained this.
Why do I rant to high heavens about this? TOEFL. I had to bitch, complain and stress to high heavens to get this requirement waived from my application to get into FIT’s associate’s degree program. I didn’t graduate from a school here (but i will be in May, YAY!) so they think my English writing and speaking skills is not good enough for college coursework. Yeah, right.
We all hate learning the rules so we can properly break them, but at this point – it is good to learn rules.
I also wholeheartedly agree that learning the grammar rules of your own language is a PITA. However, it is essential. Soon enough he will be writing all kinds of business letters, and he may not see it now – but let’s just concur that he will thank this teacher later.
Thanks for posting this story. I have a son going into 3rd grade and can’t stand writing. He doesn’t even like writing birthday cards much less school papers. I am looking for resources that will help him shed such ill feelings and acquire a better attitude about writing.
Unfortunately, at a young age, it’s all about the RIGHT way to write. Important lessons but maybe if we show kids it’s another form of expression. Personally, I think Stephen King’s story is inspiring. He started writing his own stories as a kid and look where he is now!