When we give writing assignments, we usually expect a range of reactions, varying from, "Do we have to?" to "How long does it have to be?" to just plain, "Oh no!" I have been trying to change the way I assign writing and even the way I think about what I'm assigning, and I'd like to share some of my ideas and strategies.
First, when writing is done in the target language, I am concerned above all with the coherence of ideas. After that, my main concern is the unity of paragraphs. Writing with detail comes next on the list of priorities, and after that I concern myself with grammar. Sustained writing over several pages is a goal, but it has dropped in importance since the time when I first began teaching. Ultimately, if I can get students to write sentences that contain meaningful expressions of ideas and if they can link these sentences together into small, self-contained unities, then I feel I have accomplished most of my task as a teacher.
All of this may seem obvious, but as I've looked at books and guides for teaching writing, I've noticed certain assumptions. First, there is the idea that you can simply alternate between teaching grammar and setting up writing tasks that employ a certain grammatical structure, with the result that students will learn to generalize in their use of that structure. For instance, essays on, "What is necessary in order to improve children's education?" will require the subjunctive, which students will then employ more often and more correctly. Second, many writing tasks in books give no thought to length or to audience. Students are simply given a task ("Retell a favorite fairy tale in a modern setting.") with the assumption that it is self-explanatory or self-limiting. Over time, however, I've noticed that these strategies don't work as we hope they will. Students forget about the subjunctive when the exercise isn't organized around it. And they find even -- or should I say especially? -- "creative" tasks daunting.
For all these reasons, I am turning more and more to short writing assignments. By asking students to summarize, to extract information, or even to make an argument in a single paragraph, I structurally eliminate much of the worst padding and repetitiveness (it still may turn up, but I don't have to deal with it by forbidding certain phrases or expressions). Most importantly, though, I can see the students' thinking much more quickly and clearly. A short writing exercise isolates both good ideas and thin attempts to feign understanding.
What about grammar, though? What about a variety of expression and depth and breadth of vocabulary? I agree that longer writing assignments are ideal for pushing students' boundaries and for expanding their usage. But many grammar problems can't be solved on the level of grammar correction, because they accurately put into words a student's unclear thinking. A sentence that runs: "Another aspect of the character is how she pretends to be someone she isn't but the author shows her real personality comes through in the end," Can you 'fix' the grammatical errors without dealing with the confusion between character and authorial intention? This kind of confusion, however, often runs through an entire (5 or 10 or 15 page!) essay, so that grammar correction becomes increasingly an attack on the underlying structure of the analysis or argument. It would be far better to focus on a few ideas at a time, clarifying them, learning to express them coherently, and bringing the grammar into line at the same time.
The result in my assignments is a semester that begins with 300-word paragraphs and advances slowly toward extended essays. I congratulate anyone whose students arrive at the upper levels of their language studies able to write clear, crisp paragraphs and to use evidence judiciously. I would be thrilled to see students in the third year of college language courses using logical connectors (first, thus, because, on the other hand, at the same time, as a result, etc) to create readable, smooth-flowing paragraphs. But until that is uniformly the case, I am backing away from multiple papers and moving towards paragraphs and more paragraphs.
How does this relate to student reactions to writing? It doesn't solve the problem of fear of writing. However, it does help students to return to the idea of an 'essay', an attempt, a sketch. It keeps the written form a little closer to speech, where many students are stronger, and much closer to a real exchange of ideas. The less time the student has to get lost in a string of ideas, the less likelihood that I, their main reader, will also get lost. And as they produce writing that they and I understand better, I hope that their confidence in their ability to express their ideas will grow, as well. And maybe they will have some more energy and attention left to devote to precise grammar, as well. That would be ideal.
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