Response to Real-World Writing: Making Purpose and Audience Matter

Writing is something that has been taught in schools since the existence of schools. While the actual act of writing in schools has not changed, over time, the kind of writing that students are doing have become increasingly formulated. I had not thought much about this previously, formulation does stifle the creativity of a student but I had no idea the kind of impact it was really having on them. Recently I read an article by Grant Wiggins in which he talks about how the lack of creativity in schools is hurting students much more than it is helping them. The article begins with discussing an opening for a job that was posted, applicants were required to choose from a number of creative writing prompts to submit for a chance at the position. It sounds like something like this should be relatively easy to do, however, students in the school system today would have a hard time with being given this much creative expression.

Students in today's school system are instructed to learn a formula for writing a paper. However, this formula (One introduction paragraph, three supporting paragraphs and a concluding paragraph) only works on a few kinds of writing. This works well in schools though, because the main focus of writing in schools has become research papers. Typically these research paper's are based on something that the student does not care about and thus they are following the given formula for a paper and hoping to get an A. These paper are lifeless, they serve no true purpose and do not give the students experience in connecting to an actual audience.

 Wiggins, explains a study he did with friends in which he asked them what kinds of writing they had done in the past year. Examples like a blog entry, a eulogy, a proposal were mentioned, but no one said they had to write a research paper. This is because very few people write papers like this outside of school. Much of the writing people do in their adult lives requires more creativity, which is ironic considering how much creativity is being stifled in English classrooms today. I have seen how this system of teaching has effected children once they reach the college level. In teaching college level freshmen, I promote them to be creative in their writing and make each piece they write have a purpose. However this is difficult, most of them have grown to dislike writing as they had never been given the freedom to write about what they care about or simply use writing to express themselves. Its especially disheartening to witness this when I know most of them will need to do more writing like this if they wish to have the skills to be successful in both college and their future careers.