Seven Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School

This is a blog I came across and thought some of you may find interesting as well.

Copyblogger-Seven Bad Writing Habits You Learned in School

Here's an excerpt for you,

"Personally, I think good writing doesn’t have to be educated or well supported or even grammatically correct. It does have to be interesting enough that other people want to read it. Much of what comes out of high schools and universities fails this test, not because our students are incapable of saying anything interesting, but because a well-meaning but flawed academic system has taught them a lot of bad habits."

Are we teaching writing or lecturing on correctness?

Alexander Pope once said "To err is human; to forgive, divine". Perhaps this is a quotation that some English teachers and grammarians need to keep in mind, especially when dealing with students who are, as Mina Shaughnessy refers to them in her introduction to Errors and Expectations: A Guide for the Teacher of Basic Writing", basic writers (389). I find it almost laughable that Shaughnessy seems to focus so much on the importance of teaching these undeveloped writers about proper grammar and form. To me it seems that kind of writing program would only drive these students even further away from attempting to write, to afraid ever word would be criticized and looked over with a magnifying glass. So, I was glad to see that she does address that the reader should conclude "that the 'basic' of basic writing is not how to write but how to be right" (391). At least she points out her relentless focus on error and tries to defend herself. Her defense makes sense to me, but I am just not quite sure that this approach is necessarily the best one. I loved the quote about how "programs are not the answers to the learning problems of students but that teachers are...the best programs are developed...in response to the needs of individual student populations" (391), it reminds me very much of several of our discussions in class about how a teacher must be able to feel out their class, discover what types of students they have, and then from there follow which pedagogical approach would work best.

It was very interesting to read the Joseph Harris chapter on Error before the other pieces since he gives his opinion, and others response to them. I agree with Harris that her work with these students is of invaluable political and social importance (A Teaching Subject 78). I agree with him again that, though I've only read the introduction, "Errors and Expectations thus argues for a new sort of student but not a new sort of intellectual practice" (79). It seems Shaughnessy is arguing that these unprepared students can do the same level of academic work, if they just get some crash course in grammar. Teachers are really only being told to be patient with the student and not write them off as a lost cause, not that they may have to take a drastically different approach with this type of student, despite her argument for the attention to the individual student. There seems to be a paradox in her book - that teachers need to adhere to the needs of these new students but do so with the same old formula. I think it important that we teach the students to become more that just 'basic writers', they should be taught that they can express their own ideas and concerns in their own words, with their own voice. Owning where it is they have come from, the struggles they have endured -- even if that means they are not using a prim and proper form of English all wrapped up in a neat little essay format.

I am not trying to say that academic writing is not important, and it is certainly needed in a number of fields, but I think it should not be the only type of writing schools focus on. Many of my favorite pieces of literature or poetry are certainly not standard in form or grammar.

Short Paper #1, A Paradox in the Paradigm: The Right Writing Teacher

Imagine you’ve recently graduated from medical school and finished your residency; now you have been preparing to start a new job. You arrive to your first day of work and are promptly thrown in a room and told to perform open heart surgery on a patient, but your specialty was in dermatology. I think that this is a very apt metaphor to what has been happening to English teachers over the past several decades. They earn their degrees and have studied literature, language, grammar and the like for countless hours. They arrive ready and eager to teach their first classes and are told that they must teach a First Year Composition class.

Douglas Downs and Elizabeth Wardle discuss this problem in Teaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions: (Re)Envisioning “First Year Composition” as “Introduction to Writing Studies”. Downs and Wardle discuss how despite “more than twenty years of research” (552) and the consensus within the field of writing studies that there is a large “public misconception of writing and our discipline” (553), there has been little real effort to bring any real change to the way First Year Composition classes are taught. I do not think that Downs and Wardle are being too harsh when they say that the field is actually “complicit in reinforcing outsiders’ views of writing studies as a trivial, skill-teaching nondiscipline” by “supporting the misconceptions that writing is not a real subject, that writing courses do not require expert instructors, and that rhetoric and composition are not genuine research areas or legitimate intellectual pursuits” (553). As long as first year composition classes are being assigned to teachers who were never trained to teach writing, and treated as merely a skill building class to get the students through their other college writing, the field will never be able to really advance or break students away from the same five paragraph, each starting with a topic sentence mold. I find it a very logical question to ask, if so many other fields of study have introduction classes, why is there not simply an Introduction to Writing class? When I write a report on a book read for my history class it is in a very different style then when I write one for one of my English classes. Academic writing is so varied from course to course that it is ridiculous to expect teachers solely trained in the mechanics of English to be able to teach a broad enough course to cover all these different genres of writing within two semesters. When you create a class of mixed majors and have it taught “mostly by adjuncts and graduate students” (Downs and Wardle 557) attempting to teach academic writing seems a nonplus, however “teaching realistic and useful conceptions of writing”, one that understands “features of good writing vary from one situation to another” (qtd Downs and Wardle 558) makes much more sense. The freshman composition teacher I had was also still working on finishing her ph D, and that class did little to make me feel as though I had furthered myself as a writer or gained any real knowledge about writing. Downs and Wardle point out these classes must then be taught by qualified instructors, going directly against “the typical assumption that first-year writing can be about anything, that somehow the content is irrelevant to an instructor’s ability to respond to the writing” (559).

The problem of writing classes being taught by unqualified instructors is far from a new problem. Janice Lauer discusses the issue as one of the fundamental problems within English studies in her essay “Composition Studies: Dappled Discipline”. Lauer discusses the “pioneer efforts in the early sixties” of teachers who “experienced a powerful sense of dissonance between their responsibility for teaching writing and the inadequacy of their understanding and training for doing so” (21). It is her claim that Composition Studies came to being as a recognized field by the efforts of these frustrated teachers. I wonder why it is then that we continue to place unqualified teachers in charge of writing after having struggled against this very problem to help Composition become a recognized and respected discipline.

Downs and Wardle seem to be echoing the concerns discussed by so many of their counterparts in the sixties, such as Peter Elbow or Donald Murray. In his essay, “Finding Your Own Voice: Teaching Composition in an Age of Dissent”, Donald Murray discusses student and teacher responsibilities in the writing classroom. Though his paper is aimed more at the complete restructuring of the writing classroom is does highlight how many of the issues are by the way these classes are being taught. Murray writes that the teacher “gives an assignment; he lists sources; he dictates the form; and, by irresponsibly conscientious correcting, he actually revises his students’ papers” (118). It is my belief that teachers taught, and still teach, this way not simply because it has been the traditionally accepted pedagogical approach but because they are not skilled enough as writers themselves to approach it in any other way. They are teaching what they know, grammar, structure, syntax, form – all of which does not really boil down to teaching writing.
Again the question is how does this continue to happen, why do Universities not hire qualified writing teachers to fill these positions? Maxine Cousins Hairston offers some explanation in her article “The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Revolution in the Teaching of Writing”. Hairston discusses what she refers to the “paradigm that has been the basis of composition teaching for several decades” (440). Hairston notes that “the overwhelming majority of college writing teachers in the United States are not professional writing teachers”, they are those “trained as literary critics first and as teachers of literature second, yet out of necessity most of them are doing half or more of their teaching in composition”. What is the pressing necessity? According to Hairston many of the administrators of English departments “may believe that they have so many writing classes to staff that they could not possibly hire well-qualified professionals to teach them… [and that]…most departmental chairpersons don’t believe that an English instructor needs special qualifications to teach writing.” (442). She even illustrates this with a perfect example from one of her colleagues, that “[their English] department wouldn’t think of letting her teach Chaucer courses because she is not qualified; yet the chairman is delighted for her to teach advanced composition, for which she is far more unqualified. The assumption is that anyone with a Ph. D. in English is an expert writing teacher” (Hairston 442). Any student who has given serious attention to writing or the writing process knows that this assumption is a dangerous one that has been ongoing for far too many decades. I find it more chilling that Hairston’s essay, while full of hope and examples of a major change in the accepted paradigm of writing already in motion, was written in 1982 and, at least from my own experience, there has been little change in administrators’ way of thinking about who can teach composition classes.

I do not believe the fault of the teachers, in fact not one of the articles I have read place blame on the individual teachers, but more of on the system as a whole. What I have yet to understand is that same reoccurring question, why does this continue to happen when so many have objected to it and recognized it as a problem for so many decades. All those individuals make up an integral part of the system, and must all come together to force the “paradigm shift” (439) Hairston has been awaiting for almost three decades. I am reminded of Ani Difranco lyrics, from her song Paradigm, that I must “teach myself it's never really one or the other there's a paradox in every paradigm”. The problem of unqualified teachers teaching composition is just one of several problems that have continued to plague this every shifting field. Until a greater majority of those within the field can come to some consensus of what the motives of composition are and how they should best be taught within the field it is unrealistic to expect any administration to accept facts and hire only qualified writing professionals to teach writing.

Works Cited
Downs, Douglas, and Elizabeth Wardle. Teaching about Writing, Righting Misconceptions:
(Re)Envisioning “First-Year Composition” as “Introduction to Writing Studies.” College Composition and Communication. 58 (2007): 552-584.
Hairston, Maxine Cousins. “The Winds of Change: Thomas Kuhn and the Revolution in the
Teaching of Writing.” Norton. 439-450.
Lauer, Janice M. “Composition Studies: Dappled Discipline.” Rhetoric Review. 3.1 (1984): 20-
29. Taylor & Francis, Ltd. JSTOR. Texas Wesleyan U, West Lib. 28 Jan. 2010
< http://www.jstor.org/stable/465725 >
Murray, Donald. “Finding Your Own Voice: Teaching Composition in the Age of Dissent.”
College Composition and Communication. 20.2 (1969): 118-123. National Council
Of Teachers of English. JSTOR. Texas Wesleyan U, West Lib. 12 Feb 2010
< http://www.jstor.org/stable/354178 >

Blog # 3 - Do I have any clue what I'm doing?

A few hours ago I almost started my blog in this manner - I have no idea what to write the third blog about. I haven't even finished all the readings, only the two chapters of A Teaching Subject. All the readings so far have presented many questions and ideas but I'm just not feeling inspired by any of them right now. My previous blogs have already gone on and on about the ever changing chameleon that is composition so I want something fresh.....

That is when I decided I needed to read at least two more pieces of this weeks writing before writing my blog. In the pursuit of being honest in my writing as many of our readings have urged, I looked over what readings were left and picked the two shortest ones, Donald Murray's "Finding Your Own Voice: Teaching Composition in the Age of Dissent" and Peter Elbow's "A Method for Teaching Writing". I was looking forward to reading Elbows piece after Dr. Myers said anyone with a little "hippy dippy" (or "hippie dippie" depending on your spelling preference) in them would appreciate it. (Side note: You should really watch this
The Hippy Dippy Weatherman and may I just say RIP George Carlin.)

However I decided to first read the Donald Murray piece. I am only three pages in but totally excited about. So I'm going to pause here so I can actually finish the article and see if I'm still excited and try to read the Elbow piece and still have time to come back, finish this post and hopefully figure out the big question on my mind right now from the Murray reading- Have I earned an audience?

Okay, I'm back! I am still as excited as before, but now also a bit terrified. I finished Murray's essay and the first half of Elbow's but only have about thirty minutes to get this finished and posted before midnight. So here goes -

What got me so excited about reading Murray's paper? It just resonated with me - how many classes have I had where I was expected to churn out the same five paragraph style, knowing I just needed to regurgitate the teachers lecture and I would get my A? It seems there are just so many examples of students having to worry about writing papers in the style and form of traditional college essays and not focused on writing they may use in the real world or in their career path. "Is it not surprising that the student does not learn to write when the teacher, with destructive virtue, has done most of his student's writing?"(Murray 118). When a student is given an narrowly defined subject with just a list of what it must conclude it limits what the teacher is going to get back. This is even further influenced and limited when the teacher proof reads the paper and pulls out that red pen, because the student will then only write towards what the teacher deemed as good.

Another line that really hit home with me was when Murray was talking about the teachers need to accept and enjoy the diversity of the students. "There is no single standard, no one way to think or to write, and we must not give our students the illusion there is" (Murray 118). When we did our free writing about the perfect English class one of the things I wrote about was the teachers giving the students all the rules of English, but also making them realize they are often "more of just guidelines really" (The quote from Pirates of the Caribbean I mentioned). What I was trying to say is that when a student responds to a text, a poem for example, the conclusions he draws are not necessarily wrong. He may have missed the writers’ intent entirely but this is still what the piece made him feel and think.

Murray also gives a list of the core responsibilities of the student and the teacher, as well as those they share. For the most part I also really agreed with these and could relate them to past classes I've had, and even our class now. According to Murray the "student's first responsibility" is that the student "must find his own subject"(119). This seems to be exactly what Dr. Myers is doing in our class with the blogs. Yes she has given us a general set of rules such as word count or MLA style, but we are left to develop our own subject, to make our own connections to the class reading and respond to them in the way we see most fit. This flows right into second responsibility Murray gives the students, they must "mine the nuggets of information themselves and refine the images or the facts which communicate meaning with authority, the smells and the sounds which give immediacy, the citations and statistics which persuade"(119). It's like the teacher is showing them a map to draw, giving them a legend - all the tools and resources to find information, then leaving them to plot there course across it and end up finding where X marks the spot. It was the third responsibility that began to get me a little bit terrified. "It is the student's responsibility to earn an audience, winning respect for what he has on the page"(Murray 119). I highlighted this quote, then wrote a note beside it - "Oh crap, have I earned an audience - and how do I know if I have?" The teacher putting that A on my papers doesn't mean that it was a paper that will appeal to readers, merely writing the safe paper according the form, style and content dictated by the teacher. The thought that I may have been writing all this time, and yet I'm unsure if people want to read what I'm writing is about as terrifying as if it was my paper the teacher had written "Is English really your native tongue?" (Elbow 115). Before reading the fourth responsibility I stopped to check the date of this article, and was very shocked and disappointed when I read it was from 1969. These same arguments have been raised time and time again, yet it seems there is little change. I really loved the fourth responsibility as well, the student must have the freedom to "find his own form" (Murray 120), it actually made me want to try and make my blog reply in the form of poem or prose, but I'm too tired to be that witty in 400 words at the moment.

When I went to write my first blog, I was a bit stressed because I wasn't quite sure what the teacher wanted. This very question is echoed by Murray when he pleads for teachers to "not compound the felonies of the past"(120) but allow the students to explore their own subjects and forms. The writing lab he describes in the first responsibility of teachers sounded like a place I'd love to work or study. I actually thought to myself, if I could teach a class like this, I wouldn't mind being a teacher. The set up they have reminded me of the teachers in the Take 20 DVD we watched, when they were talking about knowing when to back off and let the students go off on their own. The next two responsibilities seemed pretty basic to me and just repeating what I've discussed about students heeding to teacher expectations. The fourth responsibility made me realize why I've had so much trouble with editing my own work- I've been letting teachers do it for me. I've grown accustom to writing a first draft, turning it in, getting it back with lots of little red marks, and rewriting it mostly to only take care of the issues that were marked. I loved the idea of sitting down with the teacher and discussing the content of the essay before they pull out that dreadful red pen. Since I've never really planned on becoming a teacher, I've only really been applying what we've been reading about to my own writing.

Murray also discusses the shared responsibility of teacher and student. I am still not sure how I feel about his idea of teachers and students publishing together, but once I realized he meant publishing in an informal manner it made more sense. It reminds me of my creative high school teacher who would do our free writing exercises with us, and read hers aloud as well. Though I can't say I ever really recall her "failing with [us]" (Murray 122) it was nice to have her participate in the writing process. However I was once again terrified by the idea of being forced to "face my audience" (Murray 122), hopefully that is something I can overcome in my remaining years of school.

Murray and Elbow seem to share the idea that students must be given the chance to teach themselves how to write, by finding subjects that interest them and then searching for supporting evidence and figuring out how to put it together in its best form. Though I wonder what ever happened to Murray's anticipated "age of dissent"? The same arguments seen throughout our readings do not seem to have been resolved at all. Is that the true nature of the field of composition? Not just that it evolves and encompasses many different aspects but that those different aspects also continue to war with each other to be the main focus.

Blog Post #2 - English, the Complex Hermaphrodite

Reflecting on the various readings we have had thus far, it appears to me that English is suffering from quite the identity crisis. The reflections in my last blog post led me to the conclusion of English as a varied, ever evolving subject with a long path still yet to be much travelled. Our newest readings have further convinced me of this, but also have given way to some new insights into the complexity of the study of composition as a serious scholarly field. I, once again, turn to an essay by Janice M Lauer that led me to these intriguing insights; with some key points coming from the first chapter of the book A Teaching Subject by Joseph Harris.

After reading Lauer’s essay, “The Feminization of Rhetoric and Composition Studies?”, I contemplated essentially the same questions as that of the essay – What does that mean, and has it happened? This lead me to asking myself – Have I considered composition, or English in general to be a feminine subject? Well, my last post seemed to convey a sense of it being an often changing subject that covers a wide range of information, and to me it has always been a very personal effort that very much releases “unexplored resources and transformative powers” (Lauer 546). Those are some of the very “feminine traits” Lauer herself uses in the essay (546). However, I have also grown up with the idea instilled in me that science was a male dominated world. The information Lauer provides about the development of English as a “scholarly field” that was striving to be recognized as a “science” through the efforts of those, who were mostly male, also leads me to see the series of battles that have gone on throughout the composition community. Arguments, debates, and those striving for recognition or to be in the spotlight are all traits I, personally, would ascribe as masculine. I am left unable to decide if English would prefer pink or blue.

The chapter by Joseph Harris did not do much to lead me to a conclusion about the sex of composition or English studies. The five “key words” that Harris lays out in the foreword of his book immediately made me think once again of conflicting sexes (ix). Growth and community seem to me undoubtedly feminine, which with the traits outlined in her essay and the brief but decisive discussion of a “fecund” influence in scholarship I believe Lauer would agree (545). Yet, Harris also list process, a word to me that lends to the scientific and scholarly research involved in the field. Voice, to me could go either way, though I am reminded that those who most vehemently sought to have their ideas expressed as the ideal conclusions of the Dartmouth Seminar were all male (1). Error, the fifth word Harris focuses on, I would also ascribe as a somewhat masculine trait, jokingly and in seriousness as the scientific approach to English in regards to grammar and structure. As well as the many conflicts and arguments Harris discusses as happening between scholars at various seminars. However, I learned all these scientific rules of English throughout grade school via a pedagogy known as The Shurley Method. Perhaps it is the name or just the images of all my female teachers having us break down each sentence word by word labeling each part of speech that leaves an indelible impression on my mind and a feminized feel to the idea of error in English.

So it seems I still struggle to see if I identify English as a concrete and masculine field, or as more complex and feminized one. What I am coming more and more to identify English as seems to be a hermaphrodite of many different subject fields falling under one umbrella and connecting with us via two of our most important tools- language and knowledge.


Harris, Joseph. “Growth.” A Teaching Subject, 1-22.

Lauer, Janice. “The Feminization of Rhetoric and Composition.” Handout. 520-533.

Blog Post # 1 – Assumptions and Foundations

I have never really given much thought to the mechanics or history of writing. I would consider myself an avid reader, yet I have not read many texts concerning the history or evolution of composition. After finishing the first readings for this class I can see that will all change this semester, and I find it quite intriguing. All of our first readings deal with the development and evolution of composition as its own field of study, and the importance of being able to use good and proper English in your writing or speech, no matter what field you desire to be in. Of all the readings the one I found most interesting was “Composition Studies: Dappled Discipline” by Janice M Lauer, which first appeared in the Rhetoric Review in 1984. In this article Lauer reflects on the “development of graduate programs in composition” and the questions a developing field must face in order to be accepted (20).

Lauer begins by determining the “predominant features of any discipline”, and how composition studies coincide with these features (20). Lauer then begins discussing how composition studies came to be. I found it interesting that this field only began developing in the early sixties (21), and that it came about from teachers who felt they were inadequately prepared to teach their students writing. This reminds me of what several people said in the Take 20 DVD we watched in class, especially the female professor who said you have to change the way you teach every five years because literacy changes. It seems to me composition studies is one of the first fields to recognize the need for fluidity in its own structure so it can change and evolve with the times.

Composition studies have developed by a series of questions about “the nature of the writing process…, and its susceptibility to being taught as an art (21)”, and then questions on how to properly answer those questions it has raised. Another intriguing point of the article to me is how Lauer deems the “early theorists” of composition studies as risk takers, willing to “go beyond the boundaries of their traditional training (21)”. Unsatisfied with the state of composition in schools they looked to several other fields to determine exactly how composition studies should develop and what criteria it should be held to. By delving into other fields such as speech, psychology, and philosophy composition studies seems to have achieved another first – a field that recognizes and relies on the ability to be literate in multiple disciplines.

Lauer goes on to discuss the various methods used to test or argue theories, most notably Habermas’ four levels of discourse (22). Lauer also discusses the difficulties composition studies faces in reaching consensus among peers. It seems that journals who held wide readership, people at all different levels of discourse, could not agree on the advances these pioneers were trying to make. On the other hand, Lauer warns of theories that were too readily accepted, when theories were “prematurely promulgated as truth (24). According to Lauer “most composition scholars consider their theories and conclusions to be fallible (24)”, a statement I find comforting since I am just beginning to explore the world of composition from a scholarly view. Another comforting thought is how composition studies evolved to perform a role in both “academia and society” to “gain the power to effect change” against the problems with illiteracy facing many students outside the field of English (25).

As Lauer moves on to discuss advantages and risk of the distinctive features of composition studies, I come to see it as a field in which one either sinks or swims. The field has Lauer puts it, “largely unmapped territory [that has] rewarded some handsomely but been fatal to others (25).” Pursuing scholarship in composition studies should be pursued by those who understand how to follow a path through unexplored territory, using effective methods of investigation and research to avoid “losing their way (25)”. Thus the need from the beginning for composition studies to be a fluid field that interacts with multiple disciplines.

Yet even the ability to build from other fields presents a danger. One can not just assume a theory they wish to build on as infallible but must thoroughly understand what theory they are building from in its “parent field” (26). If one were to build their theory on top of another and that base is later debunked, then by default their theory is too. But how far does one have to delve into the other fields? Lauer raises this question towards the end of the article, discussing how graduate programs should train their students in composition studies. Is it possible to teach them just the newly developed theories of composition without them understand the bases they came from? In order to be a master of composition studies it seems you need to be able to have a firm grip in several other fields, ranging from philosophy or sociology as well as sciences and mathematics. Just as it is necessary to have a command of composition to be successful in these other fields, it is impertinent that they not be excluded in studies of a composition student.

One thing I most appreciate about the article is that Lauer does not try and answer all of these questions. They are left open for the reader to contemplate, yet with a clear understanding that composition studies is very much a unique field of its own that it still growing, and perhaps always will be.

First post, first thoughts

I enter this class with the recent, and some what horrifying, realization that in that past year I have written very little. I would like to say that it was because I took two years off of school, or that I've been too busy working full time, or I just haven't had anything to say. In reality I know it's because writing has always meant so much to me, it's always been a very personal way for me to let go, to reflect, and to grow as a person. This past year has seen me struggle with one of the most deeply personal experiences I have dealt with. Chad "Cadillac Fraf" Percy, one of the best friends to grace my life, the kind you see or speak to every day, was severly injuried in a scooter crash. It left him comatose in the hospital for nearly five months before he passed away. I visited him nearly every day till his passing, and over time I just stopped writing. No matter what I'd start out to write, it would circle back to him or his situation. I come into this class ready to reinvent myself as a writer. I wish to learn how to write about more than just what I already know and feel. Now on to some lighter banter...

I found myself interested in the Take 20 DVD. Listening to various teachers in the same field, and how their responses to the questions often lined up with each other, but also took different paths. I was particularly interested in the ideas of Mike Rose who talked about teaching writing that can cross many disciplines, it reminded me of how I would like to make my own writing more universal. There was also a woman whose name I did not catch, she spoke of being humane in an inhuman world. I've always considered myself a very compassionate person and have strove to make a difference in the lives of all that are important to me.

There was not too much of the video I found surprising, though it was reassuring to hear how even some of the best teachers doubt themselves and have to grow and change as they teach. The video did peak my curiousity about some of the books and essays that several of the teachers agreed on as being important.