Week 1. Learning Activity 2: Writing Instruction

My most profound writing instruction came a bit later in life. When I was seventeen, I dropped out of high school. At the age of twenty-five, I began attending a junior college--the only place that would accept a high school drop-out. My first semester I took a basic composition 100 course. Our first assignment was to write an essay about something we knew how to do well. I chose washing clothes. I was several years older than most of my classmates and living on my own. I thought this would be a humorous paper. I put so much care, love, and effort into this paper. It was descriptive. I had a light and humorous tone appropriate to the topic. I thought it was brilliant. I was shocked when my paper was returned to me with a big fat D- on it...But then I saw the comment on the back page. It said something to the effect of "This was hysterical--but you don't have a clue as to how grammar works. Come and see me after class."

I will never forget Mrs. Psomas--and I will always be deeply indepted to her. She persuaded me to work with her a few times a week on grammar. I did not miss one session that entire school year. By the end of the year I had learned all the grammar that I did not bother learning in middle school and high school. Then she reccommended a book: On Writing by Zinzer (I believe). The focus of this book was on getting rid of extraneous words to let your most powerful words have center stage. A year later I was in a full-fledged four year university, taking all liberal arts classes, where all I did was write papers, and enjoying great success.

My path to writing well might not be typical. I always had strong verbal skills. Even as a high school drop-out, I was rather well spoken. Describing something, starting with a broad point and supporting my claim with specific pieces examples came fairly naturally. The one big problem I had was the grammar, which seemed to get in the way and impede what I was trying to say, what I could hear in my head. Once I learned the rules of grammar, my writing quickly accelerated.

How can this help students? Well, I certainly would never advocate waiting until one is in thier mid-twenties to learn how to write. But I will certainly stress how important it is to learn some principles of grammar. In order to write well, in order to creatively and persuasively express your opinions, one must know a few simple rules: What constitutes a sentence? What constitutes a sentence fragment? What constitutes a run-on sentence? How does one use dependent clauses and phrases? This certainly seems boring and not nearly as fun as writing a fictional story, but it is essential not only to academic success but to simply being able to express yourself well.