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Ebenezer
Oct. 9, 2007
Writing to Learn
Preach it, William Zinsser.
Gems from the first few chapters of Writing to Learn:
"Writing and thinking and learning (are) the same process." -- p. ix
"What students ... write for the English teacher is more florid than what they would write for anybody else ... but this style is no part of who they are. Nor is it necessarily good English ... students should be learning a strong and unpretentious prose that will carry their thoughts about the world they live in." -- p. 13 ff.
"The essence of writing is rewriting. Very few writers say on their first try exactly what they want to say ... I don't want anyone to have to read a sentence of mine twice to find out what it means." -- p. 15
Shifting the focus from product to process "puts the emphasis where it should have been all along: on the successive rewritings and rethinkings that mold an act of writing into the best possible form. If the process is sound, the product will take care of itself." -- p. 16
"Probably every subject is interesting if an avenue into it can be found that has humanity and that an ordinary person can follow." -- p. 19
"I don't like to write, but I take great pleasure in having written ... Perhaps in no other line of work is gratification so delayed." -- p. 36
And a paraphrase from somewhere in the book that I can't find right now:
Fuzzy writing is the product of fuzzy thinking. Clear writing only comes from clear thinking.
I'm reminded of a quote from Tom Littlewood, one of my journalism professors at Illinois:
"You can be a good reporter and still be a bad writer, but you'll never be a good writer if you're a bad reporter."
I'm trying to get to the marrow of teaching writing. I struggled with teaching college students 15 years ago; I'm struggling with my 4th grader now. None of my students was or is a terrible writer; that's part of the problem. They don't see the difference between proofreading and rewriting. They don't see the need to rewrite. Of course, my son doesn't want to put pencil to paper in the first place -- he thinks it's too much work even to get a first draft down. I've been trying all kinds of angles into writing. Even when we get topic he's enthusiastic about, his attention span is just too, too short. It's our biggest struggle, and perhaps my expectations are too high.
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Oct. 13, 2007 - Untitled Comment