Mark Richardson argues in a recent Chronicle article that writing is more than a "basic skill." He cites the following as evidence:
- Students who do one kind of writing well will not automatically do other kinds of writing well.
- The conventions of thought and expression in disciplines differ, enough so that what one learns in order to write in one discipline might have to be unlearned to write in another.
- Writing is not the expression of thought; it is thought itself. Papers are not containers for ideas, containers that need only to be well formed for those ideas to emerge clearly. Papers are the working out of ideas. The thought and the container take shape simultaneously (and develop slowly, with revision).
- When students are faced with an unfamiliar writing challenge, their apparent ability to write will falter across a broad range of "skills." For example, a student who handles grammatical usage, mechanics, organization, and tone competently in an explanation of the effects of global warming on coral reefs might look like a much weaker writer when she tries her hand at a chemistry-lab report for the first time
- Teaching students grammar and mechanics through drills often does not work.
- Patterns of language usage, tangled up in complex issues like personal and group identities, are not easy to change.
To read Richardson's full commentary, visit
http://chronicle.com/weekly/v55/i11/11a04701.htm
The Chronicle of Higher Education
November 7, 2008
Volume 55, Issue 11, Page A47
