From elhi through the uni my schools never taught me HOW to write.
They made us write a lot. They taught a lot of line editing but they never taught a process of HOW to write.
When I was forced to write for my job I had to invent my own process about HOW to write.
When you have to meet a deadline with word count, aimed at an audience, using a prescribed format,
while being effective there is no way I could have pantsed that and kept my job.
I found that I had to organise and plan in detail in order to succeed.
A few elhi schools are starting to touch on the organisation as key to writing.
But no school whether elhi or uni teaches HOW to write as a process other than filling in a template.
Templates work for short papers students do, but really are not sufficient for longer papers or books.
One professor described his approach to teaching a writing process in the washpost last year.
But AFAIK no school has done anything to change their current methods of teaching how to write.
So what should schools do to teach HOW to write. Pantsing is not really teachable. At least I can't see how to teach that.
So should they try to teach a process around organising and planning, or should they just keep doing what they are doing now.
I would suggest they develop a process around the 5 levels of editing, with possibly some related procedures supporting organising and planning.
Then students would at least have been exposed to a logical method of writing and would be able to use whatever parts helped them while changing or omitting the rest.
Those students who don't need/want the full process can pants as much as they want after they graduate.
The others will at least have a sound basis to enable them to write when their jobs require it.
My experience was that most people don't know how to write. I saw that both at a regular job as well as teaching courses at major unis.
So it is clear that we need some way to better teach the writing process in our schools.
What would you teach in our schools in order to teach students how to write longer papers and even books ?
They made us write a lot. They taught a lot of line editing but they never taught a process of HOW to write.
When I was forced to write for my job I had to invent my own process about HOW to write.
When you have to meet a deadline with word count, aimed at an audience, using a prescribed format,
while being effective there is no way I could have pantsed that and kept my job.
I found that I had to organise and plan in detail in order to succeed.
A few elhi schools are starting to touch on the organisation as key to writing.
But no school whether elhi or uni teaches HOW to write as a process other than filling in a template.
Templates work for short papers students do, but really are not sufficient for longer papers or books.
One professor described his approach to teaching a writing process in the washpost last year.
But AFAIK no school has done anything to change their current methods of teaching how to write.
So what should schools do to teach HOW to write. Pantsing is not really teachable. At least I can't see how to teach that.
So should they try to teach a process around organising and planning, or should they just keep doing what they are doing now.
I would suggest they develop a process around the 5 levels of editing, with possibly some related procedures supporting organising and planning.
Then students would at least have been exposed to a logical method of writing and would be able to use whatever parts helped them while changing or omitting the rest.
Those students who don't need/want the full process can pants as much as they want after they graduate.
The others will at least have a sound basis to enable them to write when their jobs require it.
My experience was that most people don't know how to write. I saw that both at a regular job as well as teaching courses at major unis.
So it is clear that we need some way to better teach the writing process in our schools.
What would you teach in our schools in order to teach students how to write longer papers and even books ?