Raise or Raze?

There is a place for rules and skills in teaching writing, but, to only focus on this aspect of teaching writing is not teaching writing. Not a natural way to teach writing. It seems more like teaching “brain dump” – I once saw a cartoon of a teacher pouring information through a funnel into a student’s head – and this is what this reminds me of. Teaching grammar and skills. When I have had to teach students “how to write a main idea,” “how to write an argumentative essay,” it does not seem to elicit smiles and happiness from the students. It is boring, tedious, and excruciatingly unnerving. Students would rather just be handed a model from which they could copy than sit in the class, take notes, and listen to what I had to say. Focusing on text is very rigid and while it allows a teacher to plan very very well, go to class extremely organized (which gives the teacher a chance to grab even more materials because things are so easy to find on this topic) it doesn’t mean tha the students are going to eat it up and follow along willingly. Conventions are absolutely necessary especially when preparing students for success in school, but why is it that teachers wish someone else would just do it for them?